This week in Sunday Life I’m twee
To be nostalgic about an era you have to have been fondly engaged in it first time around. Which is why I’m not very nostalgic. I was largely absent from most eras I traversed. We only had one TV channel for much of my childhood, didn’t live near shops and my parents had a thing for down-scaling to the “Australian-made”, wholemeal, unpackaged version of…everything. So I never wore anything fluorescent, didn’t watch Molly die and don’t know the words to “Girls on Film”.
I also never owned a doll, except for a Barbie Hairtastic Styling Head my uncle’s ex-wife gave me (the one where you cut her hair – but don’t worry Mum! – a simple tug and more emerges from her latex skull). I gave my new Head a mud bath in the dam that very Christmas day, which clogged her follicles.
So my brother fashioned her a Mohawk. And that was that.
I wasn’t girly, so, by rights when I say “this week I’m twee” I’m really only observing from a distance, for “twee” is but a nostalgic romp back to sweetness’n’lite, Holly-Hobby-tea-parties-and-needlepoint girliness.
To be twee is to wear cute floral rompers with a T-shirt emblazoned with kittens (bought on Etsy.com). It’s to squee! at the idea of an afternoon tea. And to collect retro eggcups that you then “instagram” and put on Tumbler. One twee blogger listed what it takes to be twee:
#3 Sit on a curb every time you experience a significant emotion
#4 Push your hair behind your ears (because it “makes you look self-conscious and self-consciousness is pretty goddamn cute” and
#10 Spend hours creating a mixed tape for someone special.