We almost had it all - but hey, that's what we go to school for.

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Did I mention I turned 30? I didn’t think I had. The thing with milestones is all your schoolmates hit them too, (let’s not mention the 'milestone moments' of six 2016 weddings or babies) but the age thing – we all get there at the same point. Last week my school friend Rae hit 30, and like every moment we look back and assess, with misty eyes and longing, it’s for Rae and I driving through Tunbridge Wells at 3am playing Busted as loud as my dad’s ford fiesta speakers would go. I’ll tell you – that's still loud enough to be embarrassing. 

I was going to now write a bit with Busted lyrics. But realised that was mental. So I popped some Adele on and gazed out the window for a minute or two. (Also mental.)

GOD – she ain’t a happy bunny huh? I mean, we’ve all been burnt love. But then again – Adele has made millions, selling more records than people who know what records ARE could actually buy. But you know, what’s wrong with a woman making so much out of a bad situation? I can’t tell you how much I’ve said yes to, how much has changed since my heart was broken. Since my breastbone was sliced down the centre from my neck to my belly button, my ribs broken out the way, and my vital organ pulled out and smashed through a mincer… (one of those old-fashioned ones that you work by hand for those asking.) Then the stringy mess roughly plopped back in and just left to heal – people around me variously and generously propping me up at those moments it failed me again.

But you know? Even if that level of pain is grossly underrated in the way it can change your life, ironically, for better, or worse, for richer, for poorer. I’d not change it now.

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When I was 18 storming across a town I hated with a girl I loved, I knew those were moments that I would never forget.

Like Busted – and many, many angst ridden youths – for so long I have wondered where I fit. SO, it’s time. Allow me to channel a little of pop’s optimism. Hey – I could get with an air hostess if I wanted to. So. Imma sand down the edges, soften that glare and listen out. No more sighing over my scars – the only way they will heal is if I open myself up to someone else getting in there.

All I want really is to fall in love again. Cute huh. So maybe that’s what I should go to school for.

Parental guidance. Mimsplicit lyrics.

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So. Here’s the thing. This blog has never been about sex. I’m nae Carrie Bradshaw - and honestly, when I read any salacious sex bloggy stuff (not often) I’m aware of how well you have to write to smash out that shiz.

I’ve been single for a year and four months - there have been blogs about dates - and my interpretation of the semiotics of gender as a single straight female. But here are some of the things I have experienced in my nighttime adventures, and I hope I offend none of you but continue to make you chuckle and cringe.

In ten.

1. Yes you do need to wear a condom.

2. There is a fine line between you creeping and flattering when you can remember things about me that I don’t remember myself.

3. If you’re ‘seeing someone’ I do not want to sleep with you.

4. Don’t take jokes I do about other men / my body as an affront. I am allowed to do this. You’re not really allowed though - don’t do jokes about other women.

5. If you’ve read my blog maybe don’t try get off with me. I do not want my blog to be referenced while we’re getting it on.

(6. If you are one of the following men you can read my blog and then make out with / marry me : Jon Snow (worrying huh), Marlon Brando in the past,  Karl Drogo - any Dothraki men, Adam Driver, Adam Driver, Adam Driver... I'm going to stop this now.)

7. Please consider me as a human being, make me tea, accept my tea. Wake me up with cute quips and questions about super powers.

8. Don’t do anything that will make me sad.

9. One night stands don’t make me sad. You lying to me or being weird does.

10. Yes you DO need to wear a condom. It’s polite, boys, to not put me in a situation that could result in a baby shambles - or infection.

From all this one can’t help but wonder if I’ve had a bad run, or if I have too much sass to benefit from the perks of singledom. i.e - men being nice to me EVER. Ok ok ok they often are. I have had clean sheets and freshly poured gin prepared for me, I’ve had breakfasts and tea made. I’ve had moonlight snog walks home, adventure bike parties, I’ve had boys say such lovely things that I smile so hard I think my face may break. I’ve been told I’m beautiful, enigmatic and compelling. But I also have been popped up on a pedestal - one with a spring base that catapults me so high into the clouds that the fact that I have a heart is beyond forgotten.

I have been fan-boyed. I have had to remove my job from my tinder profile. I have been asked for a job in bed. Not kidding. I have also had the unfortunate problem of not being quite discerning enough when vetoing duvet adventures with people I know, and on several occasions now it has turned out that the excitement at ‘getting with miriam’ (I know right?) outweighs the ‘I have a girlfriend’ or ‘I’m literally just doing this to say to myself I slept with THAT girl’ - GUYS - I’M RIGHT HERE. With all my clothes off. I CAN HEAR YOU. I tell you what, it is weird to have a guy talk about me in the third person to my face. I don’t think I need to elaborate.

Final thought. You can see me just as a body. Or just that hot girl (personal opinion applies, LOLZ amirite). Or untouchably cool (seriously I’ve had that) or you can booty call me to ask for a job - but you’ll never be all the people I love and trust that I surround myself with. You’ll always be just that guy - if you treat me like ‘Just. That. Girl.’ And me and my actual guys and girls will be enjoying my anecdotes and shit blogs for longer than it took you to get a slutwhorewonderwoman like me into bed.

As women FULL STOP. We will have to keep being who we want to be and are.

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One of my dearest friends messaged me the other day on fb, pointing me to a status she’d posted about sometimes feeling ‘bulldozed by men’ – ‘getting frustrated for not being more ‘masculine’'  - and asked for my opinion.

In her reply to my response, considered but scrawled and typo-ridden as I rode to work on the bus – she thanked me for ‘articulating the historical and social context of feminism’ in a way she ‘struggles to'.

My response outlined how if we allow ourselves to change our instinctual reactions to situations based on a gender norm or a environmental push – then we will achieve less than if we push forward (yes push) but with our own agenda and moral code.

I have quite a considered opinion (yes, OPINION,) on what feminism is to me and what it means to be a woman smashing it – earning my own cash and choosing how I earn. Much of that is down to my personality – and a certain bullishness that I have now learnt not to apologise for. My bullishness is not aggressive but is unapologetic problem solving, if there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it, check out the hook while my DJ revolves it. Alongside this, I studied literary theory and am a wild over-thinker so I apply a lot of my own pop psychology and slip into that what I have learned from watching people, and reading about them.  I have confidence in my own thoughts and abilities that if they feel right to me, I roll with them – and you know what? That is traditionally the man’s right – to presume that how he feels is how he can act. That is his right while the women check themselves and slot in alongside.

Ironically, one of the reasons I have been able to get to this place – and see things clearly for myself – is as I can be forthright in the workplace. When emotionally, in relationships with boyfriends, friends, in the dating scene, with my family I can turn to useless, frustrated angry mush. If I allow myself to apply a little of ‘work me’ to a emotional situation, Mary Poppins style, spick spock, no nonsense, no emotion, no gossip, because I’m tired, unwell or just plain exhausted from fireworking energy 24/7 – I can get in trouble. Sometimes the response to my no-nonsense is presumed disinterest or my frustration is seen as unwarranted aggression.

I think the key thing I wanted to say to PSB – producer, business person, dancer, marketer, digital magician, a fiercely intelligent, beautiful, warm, funny, dirty, eyelashed-legend – was that whatever our background, reading, social and political awareness and knowledge of feminism or lack there of – as women full stop, we will have to keep being who we want to be and are. And whilst thanking all those that have helped us get to a point where our response is more likely to be rolling our eyes and gasping in frustration; than crying in the toilet at a hand thrust up our skirt – we still have a right to be frustrated and a right to express that whenever the fudge we like.

Having hairy legs basically makes you a mermaid. Discuss.

I’m on a hen do. This morning I showed some of the girls my hairy legs at breakfast. I shave sometimes, but I was impressed with the growth in the last two weeks and kinda proud of my wild wee legs so I’ve kept growing.

They laughed as I described swimming with hairy legs, ‘it’s like swimming through seaweed, your hair undulates back and forth from the follicle as you kick out your legs’ - it feels fun. Maybe that’s what it’s like to have fish scales rippling in the water as one propels their body forward.

I also mentioned when a guy spots you have hairy legs, at any level of undress, and how they do not give a damn. Maybe they then know you give less of a shit too, it’s empowering. By simply having hair in a place we’re told not to – you become a rebel. Erm – team - it does just grow there. I mean, it’s literally there - but nice to have a wild smile thinking about rebellion for doing the total sum of sweet F A.

The hair debate is funny.
I’ve been so paranoid about hair growing where it shouldn’t I’ve had it ripped out;
I’ve bled trying to manage ingrown hairs;
I’ve had arguments with boyfriends about my bikini line and how it’s MINE whether it’s clear to land or jungle style.
I’ve had ALL my pubic hair removed. It. Is. Weird.
I’ve not bothered to have it ALL removed. That’s considered weird.

I like hair. I like hairy boys. Hubba hubba.  But we’re not supposed to like hairy girls – apart from the hair on our heads, which has to look like a lace front day after bloody day. Having strong, dark hair growing on my legs, to me, accents my strength, it makes me feel like I’m something other than a body. It’s warmth, it increases the sensation on my legs – I can FEEL more.

Maybe ripping out all this hair is just supposed to stop us feeling anything? Apart from pain at the point of removal. Well. I want to feel EVERYTHING.

(‘lace front’ is a reference to lace front wig, a really realistic, beautiful, body maximums wig like the ones Nicole Kidman or RuPaul sport.)

Brooklyn (the film) - adventure is something, and nothing.

I haven’t written about a film, or a play, or a book in ages cos YA BOO it’s all been about me. Aaaaagh boys, or aaaaah work is going too well, or WOAH I got a tattoo (did anyone else ever get a tattoo?)

Obviously priority blogs in the wings are still ‘that thing he said on tinder’ or ‘god I need to delete tinder’ but for now, here’s a little culture ponder.

Brooklyn had a really shit poster so I didn't go see it when it came out. I was wrong not to - it’s a beautiful piece of storytelling. Following Ellis Lacey (the irrefutable Saoirse Ronan) moving to New York from a tiny town in South East Ireland. Now (2010’s) the town has a population of 10,000, then, less. So it’s small. The whole place is painted as a petri dish of gossip and power play – like the day after the office party every day of the year.

The magic of this film is its subtlety and warmth. Ellis has been sponsored to move to New York as her sister recognizes she's set for bigger things and applies for her sponsorship. There is never any shoehorned narrative where she is shown as ‘being clever’ – it’s just a fact. So often when female characters are placed at the centre of a narrative, any intelligence, wit, awareness are blasted at the viewer – not here. She can just be.

To see a female character presented like this means two things to me. One, we can watch women boss it and own screen time apropos of nothing. And two, the lack of aggression in the film towards her failing means we’re now allowed to watch multifaceted women on screen and nominate them for Oscars. By lack of aggression, I refer to her stern manager at her department store in Brooklyn allowing her to take a break when her homesickness is rendering her incapable to work; her sponsor (YAY JIM BROADBENT) signing her up for book keeping classes without a hint of drama at the fact she will be the only woman in the class.

The dilemma and reality of having two homes – one’s heart in two places is explored. She is a natural happy fit for Brooklyn – but the town she was born in now feels available to her as she can see it for what it is. It does help that she spends a fair bit of time with Domhnall Gleeson, hubba hubba, when she’s back at home. We all would. KIDDING. Not kidding.

I have always said home is where I am. I'm a home whore. I could go back to Bristol now and I still get tingles when I walk past places that my wee self spent time in. I could go to Birkenhead (it’s been a while) and I’m sure I’ll get a rush of nostalgia, and things will feel familiar, I could go back to Kent and roll my eyes at the skinny side-eye and awful hair but I know I would be in good company. I could go to Adelaide and walk in the front door of the Porter St Mansion and know I’m home. The thing is, we choose where we want to be, who we want to be with. To watch a girl in the 50s owning that – suffer the loneliness, fear and then look forward is inspiring to me. Watching her endure the earth shattering physical pain of being separated from the people she loves, makes me feel like we should all be a little less scared of what adventure means – and all without getting on a massive boat for weeks and weeks cos we prefer burning dem fossil fuels up high in the sky.

My first tattoo and the house of mirrors...

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This week I got my first tattoo. Infact my wrist is a little sore as I type; she’s about 24 hours old now.

Here’s the thing. It’s difficult daily to own your own body and compete. Being a woman and getting it right is more complicated than a genius Sudoku. Tick this box, don’t touch that box, look this way, oooooh you doin’ that guuurrrl?

The new dating lexicon we’re speaking – you can swipe and destroy or dance round someone you quite like for fear of making the wrong call in front of your peers. We judge constantly. It’s tough. It’s like being stuck in a house of mirrors – how are we ever supposed to know what’s real? It’s bloody exhausting.

I met my tattooist for a drink and we talked about what I wanted. He doesn’t do many first timers – but we hit it off. I also, had this feeling, which I struggle with in new interactions, of not having to be a yes person. When he suggested something I didn’t like – I went for an alternative, when I had an idea he didn’t like – same. We collaborated.

He slotted me in for the following morning – and as I sat talking about 90s indie music surrounded by drawings, patterns and ideas for other people’s tattoos it felt right. I had less anxiety than when I last had to choose between sandwich and salad.

We struggle constantly with how to be in the world. From an ignored text, or a missed date, or the insanity of getting assaulted in the street by a stranger. Exhausted by our family’s ideas for us, tired by the constant darkness in the news, worried about how we change things. We only own one thing – our bodies.

As a new friend, hours earlier a perfect stranger marked my skin permanently with black ink, and listened to me chatting away without judgment, I knew this was one step for me to own my own body. Cos it’s with this body I’m going to make changes for others and achieve everything I feel I need to – so I choose what goes into it, what goes on it – even if I can’t control what other people think of it. 

reads like a four.... #freshink #firstink #tattoo #newtattoo #shizzle #tatts #firsttime #adelaide #australia #happybunny

A photo posted by Miriam (@strawberryplantlive) on Mar 4, 2016 at 6:44pm PST

Sometimes the water isn’t that deep and we smash our face off and all our teeth fall out and our nose is broken.

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Several times this year I have heard how our experience of time changes as you get older. It’s not a figment of our imagination. Once in comparison to my nephew (the little star) and how as he has only a few months behind him the learning and experiences stretch each day out to an exhausting endlessness (not for him, he bloody loves it.) For us… our experience of life slows as the ‘new’ is just less often. I’m pretty sure I don’t fit into this category. I’m like a bloody four year old.

One thing I’ve learned, through physical accidents, from falling off waterfalls, crashing my bike, tripping up stairs (as I’m too excited to be up said stairs) to massive wins; successfully navigating a ten foot fence in five inch heels again and again, not falling off my bike most of the time, is that I like to move at a certain pace. That pace needs to include lots of new scary things to distract me from the reality of being alive. KIDDING. I’m just wired that way. GO GO GO.

Take accidents in love. Things are more invigorating when you take a risk and jump in face first. Sometimes the water isn’t that deep and we smash our face off and all our teeth fall out and our nose is broken. But sometimes it’s a freeking beautiful natural pool and you have a lovely splash and a swim and feel all alive.

In 2016 I turn 30. All old and that. I’m very excited about being 30. When I was about 25 a very brilliant theatre producer told me to just lie about my age when people weren’t taking me seriously – so I have on and off for the last five years. Now I feel like I can own my age. I wanted to be an adult since I was about eight years old, and here I am with the sage and sass of a seven year old in a dance competition. Winning on my terms. Cutting terrible shapes.

I have no plans to change now… as I storm into the next decade Imma just own it, imagine I got the minnie mouse leotard I always wanted (imagine it fits) smear some lipstick on my teeth and grab those moves with both hands. Let’s dance.