Wednesday 12 May 2010

Life is big pants, telly is thong


After only 2 weeks of sunshine stuff - 2 w e e k s - not 2 years! - I feel like I have landed back on Planet Ice Age, only without the funny bits. Still going to bed in 15 layers. The slugs have joined in the salsa classes all over every floor. And I really can't be bothered to clean any of the mess up. I have already moved house in my head. The interesting-looking house with the annexe up for grabs nearer the ice-rink but still-in-reachable-distance-of-the-rest-of-our-lives has now got 'Let Agreed' slapped across its picture and I don't fancy anything else on the lists. But this hasn't stopped me from believing that our 'new' house is out there somewhere. My 'belief' may be there, but my enthusiasm for finding it has diminished. Still wondering if England as actually going to provide it. Pie in the sky. As if our brats would let us move anywhere other than... Even 'just for the winter' is sparking blasphemic fireworks. How could we possibly entertain the notion of having a nicer life in a nicer place with nicer weather? 'Our FRIENDS are HERE!'

I'm still confused.

I'm still fucking cold.


I really don't think I could stand another British winter. I really feel now that I've done my fair share. As with the alcohol 'book of tokens' idea - ie: we all get a book of tokens at the start...... some work their way through for the duration of their stable life, others use up all their tokens early on and don't get any more, some nick other people's books etc etc ..... I now believe I have used up all my British winter tokens.

But I'm forgetting - it's May. That's Spring isn't it? Time to unearth short-sleeved things, shove old tights into a bag for stuffing toys, pick the fluff off pretty light-weight cardigans for 'just in case' weather? Insignificant knickers? Bollocks. Where's me big pants. Feel like the ice-rink is a warm haven.

Ungrateful little bastard.


Maybe this miserable old hag needs some inspiration, or reminders of what is good about England? Is there anybody out there? I need a good talking to.

(At least the Labour educational 'reforms' have been swerved! I cannot be reformed. Can the whole political system be reformed? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha .............. !!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah - that's a good one Dave..........)

I think I just need a bit of something - my 'I'm so lacking - of skills, brain, ANYTHING!' thoughts keep swimming through my head just when I start to see light at the end of the baby-rearing tunnel (it's a pinprick but we're nearly at the Grand Ceremonial Potty Hurling stage). I thought by this marker that I would have all the answers - or at least a whittled down multiple-choice selection that I would ponder. That vague floaty 'what do I want to be when I grow up?' musings, which turned into the imaginative 'what do I want to be when the kids are all at school?' question, which turned into the desperate 'what could I possibly manage when the kids are old enough to wipe their own bottoms?' puzzle, is now a drier form of Chinese water torture. ie: you are a useless, talentless, lazy, unfocused, unemployable, old, unimaginative, lumpen heap of unsightly wrinkles slumped in nasty clothes that has no hope of ever finding your place in this world. That about sums it up.

Obviously I pretend to the children that this bonny old world is full of boundless opportunities and that I have merely sampled some of them but not settled on anything because I'm so full of life that I need to taste a little everything before I die blah blahh bleughh.... Is it easier to have 'been something' and then had children and forever look back all misty to the good old days? I've never 'been' anything. Not really. If I find myself 'looking back' it's not misty - it's just glossed over. I've covered the lens of my history in Vaseline to obscure the tedious details. I'm a bit of an Impressionist me. Photo-Real does not work here. I really would like to have something to be proud of - other than delightful offspring. God - OTHER than 'delightful offspring'! Mine are definitely 'other' than 'delightful offspring'.

I can only hope that my 'other than' delightful offspring will become delightful adults full of pride in their weird and wonderful achievements. Not miserable old Not Even 'Has Beens' 'cos I never 'Had Been'. Ohhhh stop now!

I know what I need! I need a dose of my new favourite film - Drew Barrymore's directorial debut: 'Whip It'. Yes yes yes.........

Saw a few films while I was away - most of which I couldn't finish because they were so goddamn boring. Such as 'Motherhood' - about a mother who blogs (ohgodohgodohgod-so awful I can't describe, just designed to make anyone who blogs feel like dog poo crumbs that even dogs don't sniff), 'Creation' - the Charles Darwin yawner, 'Nine' - really dire remake of 8 1/2 with shite songs, 'Everybody's Fine' - which I was looking forward to but..zzzzzz.... but amongst all this waste of celuloid Minx discovered 'Whip It' in the folders of DVDs left in the house for our plundering. It's all about Roller Derby - wild girls in fishnets and safety helmets bombing around a raised track on roller skates slamming the shit out of each other. With names like Eva Destruction, Bloody Holly, Princess Slayer etc. Our mission was to all have Roller Derby names by the end of the holiday. I'm still unsure about mine - needs a little tweak. Not obscene enough. Vexin' Vixen? Better than Mr GPants' suggestion tho'. he'd lamely suggested 'something like Foxy Lady' (sweet of him but phrghhhhhh). I'd answered that 'Badgery Woman' would be more apt. After which he came up with 'Battery Hen' and felt very pleased with himself. Minx is 'Dizzy heights' (mixture of her most-used moniker and hint of triple axles to come). Think I have blocked out Mr GPants' new name. Must be a sanity-saving reason........ But this film (and I must get the original book) is now my life's blood. Maybe it can replace the sun I now so crave. It's basically about 'being the real you' which I know sounds buckety - (in the film it's 'Get some skates on and be your own hero') but I'm the sort of saddo who NEEDS to be reminded. I just need to find MY 'Roller Derby' thang. Meanwhile I just need to keep watching other people being cool to make me feel like it might rub off.

I need to get onto Amazon right now.

There we are then. Happiness. It's not all about achieving things with one's life. It's watching telly after all.

I bloody knew it.



10 comments:

  1. I feel your 'I was never a contender' pain. Was having the EXACT SAME thoughts today. Not even sure what people would be able to say at my funersl. 'Um, she cleaned condensation off the windows with a squeegee in winter. And in summer, she wandered round with the squeegee, feeling a bit redundant.'
    On the 'Whip It' note (can't wait to see it, altho' it will probably be 7 years after its release), you have laid down the gauntlet. Will be back tomorrow with my roller-name...

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  2. Oh Yeah Baby!!! I like to lay down a challenge me. Looking forward to the new handle.

    There's a line in the film: 'You can never have too much eye liner'. Living the dream me I am today - my upper lid liner has got steadily thicker over the last 2 years anyway but today I sneaked a subtle smudge under the eye too (it's dark and baggy anyway so what the hell?) Who knows what Gothic heights I may reach tomorrow?............

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  3. Laughed the whole way through...brilliant...although (serious face) I feel your pain.....

    You are livin' the dream baby, livin' the dream....holidays! they screw you up. Very pleased I can't afford one...

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  4. I've never been very good at 'holidays'. It takes months to get over them. Years sometimes. Then some idiot goes and arranges another one.

    The thing is, everyone knows that if you go on holiday with friends, then that's the end of the friendship, so why do we repeatedly go on holiday with our family? Are we mental?

    A real holiday would be ON MY OWN!!!! A good book, a kettle and a whole night's sleep.

    I may have to wait 20 years: Once the small things are big and off somewhere else and Mr GPants has run off with a younger perkier model. I'll no longer have to cook and can have a bath.

    Hanging on in there baby.

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  5. 'ha ha happiness, happiness, how can something so clear make such a mess?' ah, frazier chorus. the brilliance, the obscurity, the pointlessness of the search. there is no meaning, but the search for meaning. now i have come over completely beckett.... see how effortlessly your blog glides me on! soon i will reach zen buddhism and know what happiness there is, in no happiness at all.

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  6. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................................

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  7. Coming in late here cos I didn't realise you were back....

    I used to live on the sandy shores of the Mexican Carribean and when I first went there I didn't understand how people could *not* go to the beach at least twice a day because the sea was just so amazing. A year or so in and I could go a whole week if not more without even getting my feet onto sand that was where it should be instead of blow in into all my clothes and all over the house.

    My miserable take on living elsewhere is that once you have kids and get stuck in the day to day of keeping them alive and fed, life is kind of the same everywhere just that you have a different view from your window (and different politics). I am not overly happy where I am right now but I am happy not be be a foreigner who is never quite trusted despite speaking the Mexican equivalent of cockney.

    Oh now you've got me thinking about white sands and clear blue sea with pina coladas on tap...bugger.

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  8. Oooooooh - it just SEEEEMS so much better! The sand is always whiter.....

    I simply envy the fact that you actually DID all that - cos I never did, and prob never will. Even tho I do have that sneaky sus that you're right about the day to day stuff. I'm just having a mid-life c about all the things I've never done........ like - EVERYTHING!

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  9. I should declare at this point that I was there at age 19 as mum of a tiny baby then a few years later with a 5yo and a toddler because I had shackled myself to a Mexican who turned out to be a very, very bad husband. All that led to a hell of a lot of awful experiences for me and the boys. Shit happens everywhere but the view out of the window was nice.

    If you have never lived outside the UK but have managed to avoid needing to divorce a nutter then it's all good.

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  10. Blimey!

    I 'did' do 2 months in Dublin when I was 19. I had sand and sea there come to think of it just at the bottom of the road - was living in Clontarf. From January to March - so not very tropical. Substitute pina coladas for Guinness. Does that count?

    Sorry to hear about your horrific husband. Sounds nightmarish. Maybe boring old England and the good old repressed English have their good points.

    As for divorcing a nutter - better ask Mr GPants about that as I am obviously the candidate for that post in this relationship.

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