The one about the nun and the sailor
Something a little lighter today. This is a couple of years old now (OK, three or four perhaps), but it brings back memories of a very good party indeed. The theme was "What you sometimes wish you'd been". Colin's choice was easy, with the possible exception of the word "sometimes". He only had to grow a beard for a week or two and don the wet weather gear to adopt his dream persona, but my thinking was a little more convoluted.
I really did just happen to have this in the wardrobe (still have - don't ask), but it was a very stressful time around then, and although I'm not at all religious, my thinking was that once you'd made the momentous decision to enter a convent as a nun, all was ordered and decided for you. I'm sure it's not really like that, especially these days, because nuns have good brains and their own voices, but you get the gist of the thinking. I just wanted someone else to take charge. Besides, it must be lovely to be so sure of everything.
I was a little afraid of offending someone, especially the few committed Catholics I knew would be there, but the response was very warm. (A little too warm from some, but it takes all sorts). Bit like dressing up as Santa, but with more gravitas.
So, I'm thinking virtual fancy-dress party here. You are to dress up as someone or something you'd like to be other than yourself, and give a rationale for your choice.
The nun's habit is roughly size 8-10 if that helps.
posted by MargieCM at 11:03 am
45 Comments:
Ooooh Margie, I wish I didn't have to go to work now! This is a really fun challenge, so I will be back. The photo is a delight, and your Colin would have me trying to dry him off a bit too vigorously I expect.....I love a man in wet weather gear...you know how I feel about men and boats...and he has that porfessorial look about his that gives me wobbly knees too!
What do you think this is, Vally, fetishists' corner? Hmmm, you could be right.
As for the sailor / academic, sorry, he's not a professor yet. He is a Senior Lecturer about to become Doctor Colin, but he doesn't have the face hair any more, and he has less nerdy glasses. The effect might not be the same. I could sew some leather elbow patches on his tweed jacket if that would help.
Looking forward to hearing about your outfit!
OOH sister margie i have a confession..
I have and do dress up as a SS officer..I know this is rather inciteful but putting the politics aside I've always found it very empowering and dangerous..
hmmm i've often wondered what it says about me..
just to point out im not a member of the BNF nor a fascist racist..
I just find it damn sexy!..
yes fetishists corner,i'm there!..
Oh and like you i just happened to have the SS third reich officers uniform in my wardrobe too ;0)..
you look very saintly but theres a minx behind that smile..
Aaah Margie, don't disappoint me now. I've got Colin down as the professor and that's it.. he's got IT, but yes, leather patches on his tweed jacket and taht slightly fusty pipe smoking smell would definitely add a little je ne sais quoi! You look a wonderfully ill matched but happy pair in the photo, and I must say I'd follow a num like you any day, especially toting the chalice around...\
As for me, the last fancy dress I went to, I dressed up as a hillbilly and felt very much at home...hmmm...that's not very sexy unless you include the suggestive sucking on a peice of straw...haha...I could always dress as a mod now of course. Then I could really fit the part...well about forty years late for it, but still.
LOL Val!
Ha Ha Gypsy...I knew THAT!
The best dressed character I ever came up with was Keith Moon as Uncle Ernie...
My ex said that he knew how much I like The Who, but he was worried when I started to look like one of them...
He wouldn't let me near him - but I attributed it to the fact that he had a bit of a homophobic streak - no fetishes acknowledged or allowed.
I wore nothing more that a trenchcoat with a collection of odd and ends tied inside, a shirt and tie, shorts over men's dress pants with suspenders, doc martins, a rubbed-on 5 o'clock shadow, a tooth blacked out with felt marker, blackend eyebrows and my hair tied up beneath a cap.
Even my good friends didn't recognise me at the party and I wasn't even wearing a mask!
But the question is...what would I want to be?
As a human?
Great fun and fab pic Margie. looks like that night was alot of fun. I don't have to hit the confessional now do I? x
I've always wondered whether the nun's costume is terribly hot (as in making you feel too warm, not any... symbolical meaning) and uncomfortable (as in the sort of fabric which doesn't lend itself for comfy clothes). When I've been to Rome or places like that and it's 30+ celsius degrees, the black fabric seems terribly uncomfortable. You now have direct experience so what is your verdict?
Maria
P.S. You didn't do any leaping did you? The order of the leaping nuns sprang to my mind just now.
Sister Beryl it is, Maria. Afraid Im not I'm up to Mother Superior status though. Sister Domination, perhaps!
I love that sketch so much ... "a light leaping breakfast, a boiled fish or something" .... "vespers and bandaging ... for those who have leapt unsuccessfully" ... I must have first heard it at my father's knee I think.
As for the fabric, well mine's cotton, so it's fine, although I did get a bit warm dancing all night, especially around the head. I suspect nuns don't party out all that much though, so that may not be a problem. I also suspect the lack of comfort originally tied in with the concept of disregard for the Self. Bodily comfort as an indulgence and all that. Maybe.
But I digress. The important question is what is YOUR costume to be???
You too Grace! Yes, I do require you to confess, and it'd better be truthful please.
Gypsy, why am I not surprised? You are seriously invited into Fetishists' Corner. I may even consider a Life Membership for you.
Vally, I think you'd make a very chic hillbilly indeed, especially with a banjo. Got one? Failing that, making an entrance on your Vespa as a Modette would be wonderful. You're in. I'll invite all the academics I know for you too. Maria, if you can get your cozzie together, you should bring some Finnish boffins too please. (Pipe-smokers preferred.)
Dale, yes, yes! Do Uncle Ernie, do Uncle Ernie! Your ex sounds a little low in his tolerance levels if you'll forgive the liberty, but I am not. Human or otherwise, this works for me.
Phew! Getting crowded in here.
Oh, can I gatecrash? Please? Last time I went, I looked like this: I was feeling a little bit under the weather on that day! But for your virtual party, I like to transform my ugly mug into Salvador Dali. It'll take a bit of work, I know...
Sorry I missed the virtual fancy-dress party bit.
Hm, at the risk of it being interpreted as a sign of a bloated ego, maybe Pallas Athena, with the peplos, the shield, the spear and the helmet? She is the goddess of (organised) warfare, which I'm not too keen on, but also of knowledge and wisdom. And she represents the strong woman in an otherwise patriarchal ancient Greece. I've always liked the fact that she was the guardian deity of Athens, which was patriarchal in the extreme.
Couldn't find an appropriate photo right now.
Where do i sign?..:0)..
i have a wee bit of a tooth fetish...
signed Uncle Ernie
oh...is this a confessional now or a virtual window on fetishes?
Organised warfare?
let's get on with the oxymorons!
Ahvarahn, you are most welcome, and any time henceforth! You make a lovely Shrek, but I think Salvador Dali would be a superb addition to the party. Bags I wax the moustache for you.
Maria - that's brilliant, and very much along the lines I was imagining for you. Put the organised warefare on the backburner though, and concentrate on the knowlege, wisdom and strength. You can keep the rest of the party in check!
Gypsy - anywhere, in blood, anybody's.
Dale -
1. Black or white?
2. Both. Gypsy's fault, as always. I'm the nice one. (Refer picture - pure as the driven snow, me)
3. Hahahaha!
I'm as innocent as a catholic priest at a choirboys bedside me..
It was marge that lead me to this den of iniquity!
blood will do nicely :0)..
LOL Margie - white of course.
The best costume I ever saw was my friend Margaret, who, at the 8th month of her pregnancy, went to the thrift store to get a second hand wedding dress. Someone at the party was impressed that she even managed the outtie belly-button, which made us roar with even more laughter.
I'd like to wear one of those Dangerous Liaison courtesan dresses and just chat up every man at the party and suggest the unsuggestable. Just once.
Anne-Marie, that's brilliant. And you shall go to the ball! Better keep your courtesan's cleavage away from Val's professors though, or it may all turn ugly.
oh! oh!
(jumping up and down hand in the air)
Where can I find a fake outie belly button?
... the belly button was real. She gave birth two weeks later.
I've seen belly button suppressors, in case you're ready to pop and you don't want to ruin that red carpet look as you go claim your Oscar. It was in a loot bag that was supposed to belong to Geena Davis, but which was passed along to me by my brother-in-law's NYC PR-firm working girlfriend.
Oooh. I wonder if you can get nipple suppressors too? I know you can get fake nipples, designed to protrude cheekily through clingy dresses. Never needed them myself. Not that I would do this now, being a respectable lady of the cloth, but I once won an impromptu cherry-hanging contest at a party. (you know, two cherries joined by their stalks). Managed four of them. Mind you, it was a cold night.
AM - I did catch the innuendo that she was really pregnant...mine just never went outie - no matter how hard I tried...
LOL Margie !!
Hi Margie, thanks for your well wishes for my June, she is doing great, bored with the collar, but we're 1/2 way there.
take care xx grace
Margie, I need nipple suppressors too- mine are like daytime running lights, always ready for action. Let's get a patent going. We could make a fortune.
Hahaha Anne Marie, I have the same problem. Someone once told me they could use my nipples as coat hooks...true! They have always stood to attention, whatever!
Margie, I don't have a banjo, but I do have a mandolin - that's getting close isn't it?
I'm going to see if I can beat Margie in the cherry hanging contest!
Isn't that what padded bras are for?
Nipple suppression, I mean.
Padded bras are sold in every imaginable size from the smallest, for the woman who might actually want more padding - to the largest, for the woman who absolutely does not need or want any more.....
So I figure the only way that makes any sense at all is that they're meant to suppress the nipples....
They do make cherry hanging impossible :P
I don't want a nipple suppressor, i use my nipples as a radar to point me in the right direction..
i hate bras
what is a derwent
Rache, I don't need a padded bra- nature has overpadded me already. Besides, having protruding nipples is more a feature than a problem sometimes, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.
Blimey, I go away for a couple of days and you all go mad. Lovely.
Where to start? Rache - you first. I use diffferent bras for work - not padded, but moulded, which assists in the modesty department. I got sick of people talking to my nipples when I wore fitted tops. Socially you can do something about it, (I find ducking my head down quickly to nipple level to continue the conversation usually does it) but it's a bit tricky telling a client he's a perv.
Grace, glad to hear June's doing well. It must have been horrible with that collar.
Dale, a Derwent is a top-quality drawing pencil my sheltered angel. Made in the Lake District of merry olde England, in a range of a hundred or so beautiful colours, each a work of art in itself. Sidenote: I may be able to beat most comers in a cherry-hanging contest, but speaking of the no-bra look, there's another test I don't do so well at. I used to work with a well-endowed girl who was reading an article that said if you can support a pencil under your breast when bra-less, you shouldn't be, if you get my drift. I told her there was no chance I could hold up so much as a stub (being a tad on the slight side). She said nothing, went into her office, and three minutes later came back and lifted up her top to reveal a securely-captured pack of 12 Derwents under her left breast. She didn't say a word, turned round and left again. Impressive!
Gypsy - my sense of direction is atrocious. Should I try driving topless and just go where my nipples take me?
Val, you too? Sounds like we should form a club here! And yes, you can be an up-market hillbilly with a mandolin - I like them. I'm not really a huge fan of the banjo anyway. (Bill Bailey once said the definition of a gentleman was someone who can play the banjo, but chooses not to).
I shall be round to see you all soon, cherries at the ready.
Hmmmm...
I hope I'm able to write my Derwents off - as I'm in the office/accounting/recreation business.
Gypsy will have to send them to me, as she's at the bottom of the Lake District...I think.
No dis-lake-district-respect intended.
BTW the best school project I ever did was in Geography - "The Lake District".
Margie AKA catherine..yes you could drive topless but the other drivers may loose their sense of direction..dale The Lake District is not far west from my place..but I prefer the Caran d'Ache pens/crayons from sweden..
What a great post Margie...I love all the different throught streams running through here...from hillbillies to cherries that shine in the night..haha...
I love the idea of you driving topless...it would be a bit like the person who says"I dont' have many accidents, but I see a lot".
As for Derwents, silly me - I do of course know the brand. They are always in theose lovely flat tins with pictures of the Lake District on them. But now Gypsy's going French on us...trying to outclass you she is , Margie...hmmm the battle of the classiest..I like!
Ooops, she says they're from Sweden, not France...my mistake..but then what do we know about classy Swedish ladies??
he he val..we ladies here are all in a class of our won right?..
Hi Margie, changing the subject abruptly, there's a new WW post up if you're looking for a cure for insomnia...hehe...
I have a house full of Crayolas.
Val, thank you, I have just visited and posted. Lovely!
Dale - alas, so do I. And paints, and books, and papers, and outgrown toys, and games, and dishes, and clothes, and old records, and all those other things that breed when you're not looking and will not allow themselves to be thrown away.
Hi Margie, how are you? I had several days off with June recovering from surgery, I went through some stuff, and found some fab photos of when I was in Australia, what a fantastic place.
Feels far too long since I've been here, Margie, and I see my last comment was when I published my last WW, ten days ago...shocking!! Well there's another pice up, but that doesn't alter the fact that I've been a bad blogger, so must improve. Can't wait to hear your plans for Europe!
Haha, my word verification is FEWAX...sounds like some new kind of hair remover for ladies!
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