Polly's Underthings

Polly's Underthings by jenniphil featuring christian louboutin shoes

I wear matching lingerie every day.  Not just for dress ups. Not just when I'm wearing my favourite black lace dress which is a little bit like that one above. I have a drawer (or accurately two) full of beautiful sets in every colour of the rainbow. Every colour except beige. I have almost the exact set above, and I wear it when I feel like it. To work. To the shops... No one knows, it's just for me, and just by pulling it out of my drawer and laying it out on my dark red quilt in the morning, it's a boost. 

I wear matching underwear every day. Even when I'm lazing around in my jeans and hoodie. The fetish starting the first time I bought a matching set from Target. It was cheap and shoddily made, but it was so pretty. And I loved the matching. It settled over me in a deep comfy feeling of rightness the first time I pulled a dress over the top of a matching set that no one ever got to see. 

I love the way it can instantly improve my mood, the way that my posture straightens and the way that I feel wearing it. I have a lot of good quality stuff these days, no more Target (they don't really stock E cups) and I look after it carefully. I love the history of lingerie and I love the power that it holds and exudes. 

I love that when I wear my outfit almost identical to the above - except my dress isn't D&G and my stilettos don't have shiny red soles - that I instantly feel taller. I love the way I feel instantly confident. I have owned the dress for at least 5 years and the underwear gets worn to work as often as not, but the feel of lace against my skin makes my cheeks warm and my eyes sparkle.  

Dressing from the skin out is a feeling of luxury, even when it's not expensive. I have collected my pieces and my corsets, and my pettiskirts, and while I'm not dancing burlesque every evening when I come home from work, I love that whenever I feel like it, I can feel wanton and sexy even if I'm just lazing around in front of my computer.  

And Bingley quite likes it too. 

Day 19, Something orange

Today is supposed to be orange, but I went to the mountains today and played in the forest, so it will be trees instead. I don't feel remotely guilty about cheating either. Such is my all encompassing love of trees.

Driving up the mountain through the trees

Blue skies and bare branches, sprigs of wattle everywhere

Giggling in the sunsplashed clearings

Into the forest

Luminous green

Exquisite trees whispering to eachother

Mossy boulders to jump between

A botannic garden on the edge of the forest

The only orange I saw were the flowering cycads, of which I've forgotten to upload a photo

Strange hairy palms with Mandelbrot branches

Strangler fig

Standing at the top of a fig tree, 30m above the forest floor gazing out

Climbing the rocks

Finding the sunlight

Breathing the blue mist off the mountains

Day 18, shoes

This is an old, pixellated photo, but I still love it. Bingley bought me those shoes as a present some years ago. They are half a size too big, and due to that are still in absolute pristine condition, and get worn pretty much only around the house when I feel the need to wear patent red stiletto heels. It's amazing how much happier you can feel with something so pretty on your feet.

Day 17, technology

This is my baby. My Asus G51J imported from the USA as they were near impossible to buy in Australia. A gaming laptop that at the time of purchase surpassed most of the PC systems that were available ready to buy. It is beautiful and I adore it. My 4th child. I feel despondent when I'm away from her. She sits on my lap every night, mostly humming softly but occasionally singing all my favourite songs. I've gamed with her, chatted with her, flirted with her and she's taken some of the best photos of me that I own.

You'll notice the teddy bear and fingerprint accessories as well as my pyjamas in the background. Due to the cold I've taken to doing a lot of my writing/reading in bed, and my other three neglecterinos like to curl up with me and put their invariably sticky hands over everything.

Day 16, long exposure

Long exposures are my nemesis; not being in possession of a tripod (though in desperate lust with the idea of a gorillapod). I have very steady hands, but it takes the merest fraction of movement, an inhalation at worst to cause the dreaded shakes. In Melbourne when I was taking my night shots I became increasingly frustrated with photos like this

and my seeming inability to keep still enough to take pictures that I wanted to take. Sometimes the blurring actually worked, and I like the movement in those pictures, even if it was completely unintentional. It gives a pace to the picture and a living quality that I sort of like.

But the type of photography I would love to be able to do is starlight photography, tracking the movement of the Earth as it spins, the stars lighting up the sky. And I will never be still enough for that. It's hard enough taking pictures of the moon.

Day 15, silhouette

The moon is so bright tonight it is hiding the stars, the sky covered in a pearlescent sheen. It was looking at that cold bright sky tonight, with my eyes blinded by tears that I decided I will never be a surgeon. I could not treat someone as an organ to be sliced and managed, and then passed on when there is nothing left to cut.

I had to make a call tonight, to a girl who is still young enough to be at school and ask her to come to the hospital. I explained as carefully and as gently as I could that her mother had started to deteriorate and that she needed to come to the hospital. I listened to the frank fear in her voice as she understood immediately the implications of the calm words coming out of my mouth in my gentle voice. And it was the hitch in her voice that had my own vision swimming and swallowing hard. That trembled my gentlest voice and made me angry at myself for still not being able to do this without staying professional. To be calm for her.

I had had the same chat with her Dad and her brother, explaining to them that their world, already grey and miserable had started to hail down around them. Raised my voice to be heard over the massive thundering blows that were rocking them where they sat. And as I wrapped up that horrible meeting, with tears in my own eyes and started on the paperwork that goes with something like that, the surgeon that operated on her walked onto the ward. Glancing at the paperwork I was filling out he intoned how sad it was, before turning his attention to another scan, another tumour, another operation. Next.

I felt so disillusioned sitting there, my neat handwriting filling a sheet of progress notes to document what I'd said and what the Palliative Care team had said. When I had never cut her, had not poked around inside her body, had done nothing but care for the shell that was left after the cancer had been scooped out like a hellish icecream. I was not the one who admitted her to hospital, had not explained to her family what was going on. And yet I was the harbringer of death.

I looked at the clock then and realised I was late for the meeting for the Monkey's school orientation session and I swallowed hard, blinked and signed my name under the notes. Other doctors working with me whisking paperwork out of my hands and shooing me out the door knowing that I had needed to be somewhere else while I stubbornly insisted on seeing it through. Knowing that I could be late to the meeting, but that this, this was something that needed to be done properly. Not as an afterthought, not a careless "oh that's sad" but properly. She will only die once, and I don't want it to be thoughtlessly.

And as I looked at the silvery moon, and the almost oily sky, and couldn't see my star, I trembled a little and vowed that I would never be like that. That I would never ever be that person that does not want to be involved at that time. I've been told variously that I would make a brilliant surgeon and that I never could be one. My hand eye coordination is excellent. I am meticulous and driven and pedantic. I am organised and methodical and I have an understanding that means that I would make a great surgeon. Those are not my words, they are transcripts from references that I have in my possession.

But all of that means nothing to me if how I am defined is in the scars that I leave on my patients and their families. I can't have that as the silhouette that chases me on a moonlit night as I leave in the cold and dark, my breath fogging around my face as I cry.

Day 14, Eyes

They've been my own for as long as I remember. Eyes that change colour with my moods, from watery clear green to happy brown. But always with flecks of gold, that somehow, when I am completely happy, (right down to the tips of my fingers) take over all the other colours, until they glow golden. Like the last rays at sunset before they fall behind the stars.

Day 13, Me with 13 things

I am miserable today. Stupendously, wonderfully miserable. Even the pink fluffy clouds right outside my window can't bring me out of this funk. They whisper at me that dreamland is out there if only I'm willing to come out and play. And instead I huddle further into myself and blink back tears. I had a near panic attack while grocery shopping today, even while wearing my brightest and most cheerful clothes. So I decided for this that I will post 13 things that usually make me very happy.

1. New chunky scarf and paisley kaftan

2. Pink tights, black ballet flats

3. Pink tights, pink metallic ballet flats

4. Silver ballet flats

5. Black patent stilettos

6. Red patent T-bar stilettos

7. Black booties, pink tights, last ray of sunshine

8. Pink tights, swirly kaftan

9. Buckled mules.

10. Spotty

11. Lacy peeptoes with a velveteen bow

12. patent red stilettos

13. Bingley's jacket

It didn't work.

Day 12, Sunset

In weather such as this, it occurs to me that it must be a great thing to be in posession of a tail. Especially if said tail is covered in fur and optimal in length to cover your nose when you curl up in the prime position in my bed. Prime position of course being snuggled firmly into my side, as I am apparently the radiator around which my shivering family choose to congregate inside this frosty house.

At present the Possum is curled up much like the cat into my side with his elbows and knees drawn in, nose carefully embedded in my waist. He is snoring softly and I wish I could describe how much I enjoy the sound and how difficult it is to stop smothering him with kisses. I adore the way his fingers curl and reach out for me in sleep and the way his toes seek me if I move away a breath. He has been sleeping for nearly two hours now and I am more besotted now than I was then, when we were reading stories together and he made RAWR noises for the dinosaurs.

It has been bitterly cold of late, seeping in under the floorboards and through the cracks in the doors. This is a drafty house at the best of times, but when the wind is whistling and pained, there is no escaping her. Huddled beneath 2 feather quilts and wincing when needing to leave that sanctuary.

We converted the Possum's cot last night, and now all my babies sleep in beds. The cot pieces stacked in the garage, never to be used again. Of course I have said that before, and I found out not a week later that they would indeed be used, but this time is a little different. I am happy but sad at the thought. Intermittenly excited by the plans we can make as a family and the life that will be a little less unstable, especially as the Possum intermittently sleeps through the night. But that wistful sadness that punches me in the gut sometimes, I wonder when it will go away.

It is late afternoon now and the birds are singing in the trees their beautiful twilight songs. The cotton candy streaks of cloud are tinted raspberry pink and the breeze is gentler. Still cold, my nose is still ruddy and my fingertips burn, but not the bitterness of yesterday. It is exploring weather, to put on a jacket and wrap a scarf up to my ears and thump around in waterproof boots to explore the empty streets.

I feel as golden as the sun, fiery against the horizon in a final display for the day. The perfect accompaniment to the chorus of the birds and the gentle rustle of the leaves as the wind sings her whispered words. Little smudges of purple on distant mountain tops heralding the silken cover of night, spangled with stars. I feel that passion stirring again in my chest, that has laid down lame and dormant now for some time. My palms are cut, but they are no longer bleeding, and the pain has settled to a dull ache. I need and want to write now, and my journal is filled with scribbles. Putting me on notice to pull together and stand up to the spray of life as it races through time.

The grey blue mist is taking over the sky now as the sun settles in splendour beneath her blanket of night and I want to fly out to it. Get on a plane and watch her red against the horizon as she sails just out of reach like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I did that once, and found my Gleam. And I fear sometimes I left her there.

Day 11, Something blue

Frankie

Day 10, childhood memory

Staying up late on a Friday night, watching Disney movies under a mound of blankets...

Day 9, someone you love

I was at work late last night, and then headed out with an old friend who reminded me at 8pm that I was supposed to be meeting him for dinner. Oops. In any case, it was lucky I'd actually dressed ok that morning because I'd completely forgotten. But after being at work 13 hours I looked terrible and I smelled worse. He was gracious enough not to mention though, and it was a fun night after an aggravating evening at work. After I dropped him off at his place, I drove home through the quiet streets and listened to the radio and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. At one red light I looked up, and above me was a wattle tree, about to burst into bloom, and I smiled. I've fallen in love twice under sprigs of wattle, and it remains one of my favourite flowers.

Anyhow, that was a long tangential ramble to explain why I missed Day 9 of the photo meme - someone you love. The difficulty being of course choosing just one picture when there are so many loved ones. I could choose the friends I saw last night, who have seen me tired and miserable and crying but joyful and drunk and disinhibited as well. Who have carried me home (almost literally) as I slurred my everlasting gratitude love for them. Who have eaten fresh pasta after I've rolled it for them and hugged me when exams were over.

I could show you my parents, who I understand a lot better now that I am one, and who I am heart squeezingly proud of as well as loving them to bits. I could show you how happy they look these days now that they are winding down from the ridiculous years of work and kids, and get to enjoy the spoils.

I could show you my aunties and uncles, my cousins and second cousins, all close, all get together a couple of times per year to eat too much and talk loudly. I could show you Bingley's family, and his extended family that wrap around us like a sorely needed blanket when things feel like they're unravelling and threadbare. Who I know would always support him and my babies, and who have supported me as well.

I could show you Bingley, who is making macarons in his quest for dominance over the perfect shell with feet, with a slightly maniacal look in his eye as he prods his macaronage to assess the bubbles. Who I woke up curled into this morning, with Oscar the cat, our first baby snuggled into my belly feeling warm and snug. Who nuzzled my hair as he stroked my hip and whispered "shouldn't you be going to work?".

I could show you the Possum, whose second birthday entry is still in a drafts folder and who has been snuggly and warm and adorable. Who is making more sounds and coming closer and closer to speech, as we encourage him with his different noises and sign language. Who is ruddy cheeked and golden haired and universally adored. Who is awake far past his bedtime, playing trains in the play room with the Elfling who is watching a movie and the Monkey who has passed out.

I could show you the Monkey whose curls could be a post of their own. Whose fierce temper and loving spirit make me want to scoop her up and hug her til she squeals most days. My funny quirky girl, who crawls into bed with me most nights, snuggles into the groove she found when she was a baby and snores softly. My ridiculous child, dressed in 5 layers tonight at her instigation and who looks not unlike the Michelin Man.

But instead I will post pictures of my Elfling, with whom my relationship is often strained by expectation and frustration and the desire to be a good parent while also being a good parent. I don't always understand her, and sometimes I am guilty of not taking the time to explore her fragile ethereal world before stomping in and getting cranky about the mess on the floor. She is clever and sweet and loves her friends to a fault. She is also anxious and a little shy, and maintains a self deprecating fear of her inabilities that makes me want to punch her Prep teacher. She is luminous and wild, tangles and briars and yet still the perfect rose tinted cream complexioned baby that lay in my arms some years ago.

Highschool

Polly is going back to highschool looking suspiciously like me as a 17 year old. Short tartan skirt, the coveted docs, the white school shirt. Messy braided hair, no make up. Big dreams and wistful fantasies. Wishing she could live in a book. Black celtic cross around her neck, ankle bells, cloisonné market jewellery and always the notebook and pencils.

Day 8, A bad habit

Well, I have no idea what to do with this one. I have plenty of bad habits of course, but they're kind of hard to photograph. Either that or I don't think even a meme means that they ought to be captured on film. I don't shave my underarms as vigilantly as I should. My eyebrows need plucking. I am procrastinating from paperwork I should be doing and I have a bad habit of ignoring the dishes in the sink.

I am ignoring the retching sounds of the Monkey, her newest tantrum trick, and laughed when the Possum had a tantrum tonight stamping his leetle feet. I work late hours even though I could probably come home sooner if I was willing to sacrifice reputation. I bite my nails when I'm stressed and if it's bad the skin around them too. I pick at my toenails and I sit with my legs crossed tailor style at the table (and often at work). I used to buy too many cheap and nasty clothes that never suited me and sit in piles waiting to go to Vinnies. I buy too many flowers and watch as the petals fall on the floor instead of sweeping them up and I often don't brush my hair.

I should have helped Bingley cook dinner tonight (I actually got home before he started cooking!) but instead played with the Possum on my webcam. I cling to memories that others have forgotten, and spend more time dreaming than paying attention in lectures. I talk too much and not enough, I sometimes go to parties and don't feel like circulating so I plonk myself somewhere and let the mountain come to me. I whinge about paying essential bills and then book an exorbitantly priced restaurant for Paris, just because the hedonism of it feels good.

I can't just find a story interesting, I have to dig at the bones of it until I've discovered its very secrets and my friendships can be similarly probing. I have no qualms taking naked photos of myself, celebrity stories be damned. I sometimes laugh at ridiculous names and I have been known to pick apart someone else's outfit, which is possibly more shameful than a bad habit, and invites proverbs invoking glass houses and projectiles.

I'm lazy with my writing and often settle for near enough, or not even close. I often have good ideas that would be lovely if I sat down and pieced them correctly, but I'm lazy and slop it together anyway and hide under the "it's just a blog" excuse. I love reading embarrassing novels in public places and will flash a lurid Mills and Boon at an onlooker just to see their reaction.

I am messy and chaotic, but seek order. I love the look of clean minimalist living with everything in its place but secretly harbour French dusty bric a brac chic fantasies. I am forever starting drawings or paintings and never finishing them. I learned how to knit and have at least 6 projects in my basket that haven't been touched since 2007. I was late to work today because I decided at the last minute I wanted to wear eyeliner.

At least the eyeliner looked nice

Ahem, this is on a *good* day

My Mum gave me these from her garden, so they don't count as a bad habit. They're kind of here to break up my terrible habits...

Shoes dumped in the doorway, bag same, ignoring the bag and shoe racks I actually walked straight past

Learning to braid my hair while reading blogs instead of studying

Tights because I'm overdue for a leg wax

Hmm, is that enough yet?