Rachylou: what is "hazing"? Why do you do it? Who makes you do it?

This vlog is getting creepy to me. I have never heard of "hazing" nor do I want to. I feel this life is filled with enough awful stuff, why add more? I just want to live a happy life, married with children, love fashion, travel, etc. I'm not into some creepy stuff. "Hazing" WTF?

fashionfern: WTF? I can tell we have nothing on common.

WTF is "hazing" anyway? Not that I care, but I cannot erase you so I'm asking.

Enjoy your dinner, Rachylou!

Ooh. Another Brideshead fan! Wasn’t it gorgeous?!

This stuff isn’t serious, btw, fashiontern, Violett. It’s teasing. A playful game.

Also: What? My profile pic doesn’t look Chinese? Ha! Actually, no one in China thought I looked Chinese. I think I do, but evidence suggests that’s not always the case, it’s true. I’m mixed.

Thanks, fashiontern! I know we will!

Life *is* tough. Hazing is meant to prepare people to stick together, operate as a team, to get through the tough stuff when it’s tough. People, we don’t really survive the elements all alone. We need each other. One person can’t do all the farm work because the others find it unpleasant or beneath them and have everyone survive. That’s why we do it. In a storm, you have to get on deck and take down the sail - no freezing up and hiding below deck. Everyone will die.

That’s the most eloquent defense of hazing I’ve ever heard. I think it’s the only defense of hazing I’ve ever heard. That’s probably because of how much of my life I’ve spent in places with fraternities and ROTC units, marching hands, and other groups whose hazing practices become public when someone is badly hurt by them.

Yeah, ‘hazing’ has been given a whole new meaning in those settings. Or it’s been used as a term to try and cover up torture and cruelty...

I bet you've got a nice 1940's / Katherine Hepburn-inspired pant suit lying around somewhere.

I like Emily’s idea!

Of course you look Chinese Rachylou! I never doubted it for a minute. However my suburb in Auckland has the largest Chinese population in our area.
Also, my daughter's partner is Vietnamese living in the East Bay area and I do know that pho is not Chinese.
You have a fascinating background with Barbados involved though. Share the story some time? xx

Am I too late to join in? I like Emily's suggestion. I still remember your absolutely unmatched WIWs from some challenge Angie proposed a few years back. You can rock any look you decide upon. I also like the idea of your lace mini-skirt with leggings, if you want to go that route.

Hope you have fun catching up with an old friend.

Something about Bofu Botswana is incredibly offensive.

Binkie, considering it’s a combination of a gay slur and condescension about a place, I agree.

I don’t know the gay slur. But it comes from a PBS movie of the week. It’s a reference to the offensiveness of the, well, ‘white man’s burden’ concept in general. Which of course is in turn an attack on white culture. Can’t win really.

“White man’s burden” is a Kipling phrase. It was intended in earnest, not as an attack on whites in any way. It relies explicitly on the superiority of white people and white culture to move along the rest of the world. “Bofu”, at least as I’ve heard it in the phrase “Bofu Egypt” is a shortened version of “butt fu**”.

If I understand your later comments, your friend does not live in a rural area; he chooses to limit his social engagements. Is that correct?

Right, Kipling didn’t intend offense. But people find it offensive nonetheless. And then yet other people find it offensive that people find it offensive.

But oh no, lol. Now Egypt is involved!

My friend... travels. He likes rural Wyoming, Montana. Spends time there. Recently he was in Paris and Vienna. He’s interested in making a catamaran home... He’s extremely social actually... in an anti-social way....

How anyone could find it offensive that colonialism is offensive is beyond me.

Your friend sounds like a quirky dude. This should be a fun visit!

That’s a joke right? Lol. That’s where I’m at right now.

We will probably have too much fun! We always do. We will probably recite Kipling with the armagnac. Or Tennyson. Tennyson is better fun. Aaaa!

Jenni, Sterling - thanks for the suggestions/input! I’ll give the rundown one day. It’s all British colonialism for my peeps, yeah...

The Boris way. http://www.atimes.com/article/.....-tennyson/

But no, zero humor about colonialism being “ not that bad” or even “good for the colonies” or whatever other lines Britain First and other nazis have come up with. Living with people whose country was recently torn apart by a proxy war that took advantage of colonial power play-offs while simultaneously reading hundreds of pages of original documents written by colonizers 100 years earlier will have that effect. Turns the stomach and turns off any sense that there could be humor in it.

So is this visit soon enough that you can start trying things on?

Do you have anything that channels Vivienne Westwood in her heyday?

#1 the one & only Linda Evangelista. In full on highland & then some
#2 herself
#3, maybe a bit to Dickensian
#4 wrong season I think, but I figured you appreciate the toile t-shirt

Oh, you are always so brilliant Annagybe. If I can find a good topper, like the Linda Evangelista, my plaid ruffle skirt would totally work. I do love #4, but would need more time for it.

The darn problem is he arrives in two days. I work until midnight on Saturday! I don’t really have time to dress, you know do hair and makeup and put real clothes on. And I have to make reservations still! Argh.

And yeah, no, colonialism isn’t nice. And that’s why ‘Leave those people alone’ a la the PBS movie of the week. Edwardian in dress, not belief.

I have to jump in. "Edwardian in dress, not belief": I think I just found my style statement.

(Also every day is Vivienne Westwood's heyday.)

Thank you Rachylou to quote me on my way to wear the shirt with the collar closed I agree with you it's more beautiful with a suit I think it's more classy. To make you happy with your outfit Your friend Bernard

IF anyone could channel Vivienne Westwood, you could, Rachy Lou. I do understand how working until Midnight would constrain you though. It is a shame. But truthfully, if I worked until Midnight, I would likely be in bed.

SarahD8 -- I love that style statement.

And Annagybe -- those pictures were pure delight.

Bernard -- You always look fabulous.

Merci Sterling

Okay, I think Kipling-and-armagnac parties may be the new hipster shindig.

I vote black dress with pearls and plaid. Did you ever get the JW Anderson puffer??