The Over-Styled Life

I was happy when Bubby Makes Three gave me the opportunity to let it all hang out. As much as I adore the aesthetics of life, I've got a bit of an issue with the Over-Styled Life. I previously mentioned Fleur Wood's book and how much it made me cringe. Even though I couldn't get into the over-done images and seemingly forced bubbliness of the whole thing, at least it was authentically Fleur Wood. I think she's really, genuinely like that.

Although sometimes I'm rather too preoccupied with the way life looks for comfort, I'm not really in danger of leading an OLS any time soon. It's the kind of life where at a party the host worries more that everything looks perfect than the happiness of the people attending. It's perpetuating the myth that women leap out of bed fully airbrushed into homes that look like a magazine spread. A world where only a $495 rubbish bin from Top 3 by Design will save our homes from becoming land fill. It's eating Donna Hay food rather than just looking at it. It's shopping at boutique grocery stores and paying $36 for a slice of cheese without batting a Bimatoprost coated eyelash.

It's sands and taupes and camels. It's definitely never beige.

It's the woman watching the people watching her children frolicking in their matching white sundresses rather than watching the children herself. Her husband smiles indulgently and wonders if she's put on a bit.

It's over-bright smiles and self-conscious fussing. It's forced whimsy and copy-cat cutesy. It's like we stopped looking at Pretty in mags and decided that we wanted that stylist-created, airbrushed life for ourselves. Without the stylist or the airbrushing.

It's all so samey same same and it's infiltrating more and more sectors of my life and it's driving me a bit bonkers!  Fortunately, I am far too frizzy, beigey and generally lazy to really fall victim to the OSL phenomenon. But, I know it... oh, yes, we've met and I didn't instantly turn my back like I should have...

Are you a victim of the OSL? Can you maintain the pace?

[Image by Peter Guthrie]

Stuff I like

Stuff White People Like never fails to raise a chuckle and, of course, a mirror. It amuses me that I'm so White it's not even funny (!).

Take TED (which I am obsessed with) or Banksy (whose 'work' I admire) or  Vespas (which I despair I never owned pre-Tsunamis) or Grammar (I won't shop where apostrophes aren't served). Then there's Sushi (which I have somewhat embarrassingly written a love story to here), Gentrification (rough suburb puts on make-up but you can still see the well-worn creases) and Appearing To Enjoy Classical Music (because I do... no, really).

Then, like all White People, there is the stuff that I say I'm into, but I don't really get and I don't actually like. Things like Rugby (boofs jumping on boofs), Bob Marley ( ... ), Coffee (the idea of pouring milk into brown water makes me feel a little bit sick) and Organic Food (I just don't see the point of insisting on only organic vegetables and then hoovering down a Snickers).

There are the things I think are interesting but never get around to doing like Farmers' Markets (see Organic Food above), Not Having a TV (I can't miss Wife Swap), Vintage (too much detective work and delayed gratification involved) and Marijuana (because that would be illegal).

And the things that I find genuinely perplexing: Gifted Children (because they all are, aren't they?), Double-barrelled surnames (what actually happens when two double-barrels marry each other?) Moleskine Notebooks (and over-priced branded stuff in general) and Marathons (although, of course, any day now...).

So, hey, I'm a White Person and I find it very, very amusing to poke fun at me.

Are you White? What's some of the Stuff you Like?

[Image via Paper Face, source unknown]