1 Kidney (functioning)
1 lump of liver (shows some sign of damage)
Slightly aging body.
1 desk
1 Soul (slightly tarnished).
1 upright piano (may need tuning)
(NB- Not necessary for payment of medical bills #welovethenhs)
1 Kidney (functioning)
1 lump of liver (shows some sign of damage)
Slightly aging body.
1 desk
1 Soul (slightly tarnished).
1 upright piano (may need tuning)
(NB- Not necessary for payment of medical bills #welovethenhs)
I predictably swore that I would never do pink. My daughter would not ‘do’ pink. But here we are. Two loads a week. Bright pink, sugar pink, cerise, raspberry pink, peachy pink, pale pink, white with a hint of pink. Even the stuff that isnt pink, has pink fecking sequins, trims, and bindings.
I didn’t swear I wouldn’t ‘do’ pink, because I am a humourless militant feminazi. Although I am. It certainly wasnt because the idea that girls are somehow drawn to this bland, inoffensive, wishy washy colour, by virtue of being born with a uterus, was offensive to me- although it is. It isn’t because thinking of the people who shape our nation, our minds, and our finances, standing up wearing sugar pink is absurd- although it certainly is.
I swore I wouldn’t do pink- because it is a fecking vile colour. It goes with nothing-apart from more fucking pink. The overall effect of a the obligatory pink trim, on anything, so that people are able to identify that my child is female, and is not called George- is horrible. It was a fucking vile colour when it was traditional for boys, and it remained a vile colour when boys realised, and it was shoved off to girls.
Rachel doesnt even suit pink. She looks great in red, blue, even yellow- but not pink. Yet it is almost impossible to buy clothing for a child without a penis, that doesnt have a sliver of pink, sneaked into it- somewhere, somehow.
I wish this post was original. I wish I was saying something that hadnt been said, a million times before, and that my insight into the cult of pink- was some kind of profound statement. But it isnt.
Ah, I hear you ask. You are the person controlling the purse strings- why do you buy pink? Consumer sovereignty and all that.
I try really hard not to. I will go to ridiculous extremes not to buy pink- but when 90 percent of the clothing available for girls is pink, is accented with pink, or has something pink on it- then you are left with little choice-and it slips in. When that is combined with the fact that her extended family and friends are determined to see her as some kind of princess(and am damn sure I will blog about the cult of the princess at some point- but I need to be able to do so without shaking with fury!)- the pink sneaks in. Rachel is told that she loves pink, that she should love pink- and slowly but surely, pink is becoming her favourite colour- as it is with every one of the little girls in her nursery class. I would rant more about this subject, but I have to take a load of washing out of the machine, that looks like someone left a red sock in there.
So the change of pace materialised again.
Walking into nursery, to be greeted by ‘Its my mummy, look, its my mummy!’, by an squealing, excited little girl, desperate to show me her new picture(which is for the wall mummy, but maybe at the top of the wall, cos there are lots of pictures now)- is just about the greatest thing in the world. Walking home, hand in hand, while she tells me I should have brought a coat, cos its a bit chilly, is beaten by nothing.
The chaos of jigsaws thrown about, and the sheer excitement of finding she has a new tea set in her bedroom (where did it come from Mummy, do you think Santa left it…I love it, but Santa is on holiday, you said).
Even the bedtime routine of ‘Mummy, I need to come and get a drink’, ‘Mummy there are spiders in my bed’, and every other desperate attempt to get me to come back up, delaying sleep, by just another minute. All brilliant.
I was wrong. I didnt need to prepare myself to change pace. The reason my life is at the pace it is at, is that it is ruled by a two year old tyrant, with blonde curls, and brown eyes. The minute my child free birthday celebration was over, and I walked into nursery. The pace changed by itself. Very happy I am about it too.
Did I mention the Sunflower has miraculously sprouted a new leaf?
THis year, I almost forgot my birthday was coming up.
Sometimes, its like I hit 21, and someone somewhere hit the fast forward button. Months pass quickly, I suppose I will get to the point where years pass quickly. I am going on holiday next week(nothing outrageous- just a shared house with some friends and their kids in the Cotswolds). This means that actually, I will probably spend my birthday sorting out my washing, and playing with the short one.
This year, its 31. Am supposed to feel sad about that. Its been all over the papers that some presenter has been sacked for being too old- and thats the thing with us girls. Once we hit 25, we are supposed to be concerned about the lines, the wrinkles, our fading usefulness, now we dont fit with this ideal of a perfect looking 21 year old. Youth is all, skin like a fresh apricot, taut stomach, arse you could bounce a penny off. People make jokes, pretend that they think I am older- like its supposed to be a bad thing.
Strangest thing though. Possibly not surprising for those who know me, but actually its no bad thing. In fact, I quite like it.
I have lived on my own since I was just shy of my 16th birthday. I always looked much younger than I was. I had 13 year old stepsons at 23, and long before I was this person getting to grips with parenting Rachel, I was parenting boys who were 10 years my junior. I had this life, this great life, but this life that felt a bit pretending. Like I was pretending to be a grown up. Its cliche for our generation, that we all think we are faking adulthood, and that someone will come along, and take away the mortgage, the house, the career(have been lucky enough to have two), and send us back to double maths.
We arent faking it. I wasnt faking despairing cos Daniel had left it till the last minute to tell me he needed cooking ingredients. I certainly wasnt faking going to work in situations where the decisions I made had consequences that could last a lifetime for others. Any more than I was faking the nights out with my friends, where the sun coming up didnt really indicate that the night was over. What made me feel like I was faking it, wasnt that when I looked in the mirror, I saw a girl who barely looked 20. What made it feel like I was faking it, was that other people couldnt see past that girls face.
Up until my daughter was born, I looked like a child. I had the skin of a child, enviable I was told. Same with my body- absolutely the ideal apparently. Tiny, fat free- like a little diet yoghurt-sample size- which meant buying designer bargains was much easier.
I was once carrying out a consultancy for Leeds City Council. I was about 23, and it was quite an impressive consultancy. Designing, delivering, and evaluating a series of training events, to be delivered across the service, designed to improve performance…blah blah blah. The head of their training team came to meet with me, and I went downstairs with the guy who did my admin. When we got there, the Leeds City Council guy, shook the admin guys hand, and asked me for a cup of coffee.
That kind of thing happened a lot. In the supermarket with the boys, I got ID’d for a bottle of vodka, even though I had a shopping trolley with what was clearly not the shopping of a young girl trying to score booze. (Seriously, if I had tried to score booze at 15, which I frequently did, I wouldnt have been buying a shopping trolley which included 12 toilet rolls, and enough food to satisfy a swarm of locusts, which by the way is the nearest comparison to having twin adolescent boys in your house-food wise).
When the things that I was supposed to prize started to fade. No longer could you bounce a penny of the arse, the breasts slightly out of kilter after going from a 34a to a 38c and back down again, after feeding Rachel for 15 months. The stomach still flattish, but no longer taut. Skin that could probably do with makeup more often than I can be bothered, and no longer fresh faced and able to fake life, after a weekends activities that apparently it is ‘sad’ that I still enjoy. My ovaries are apparently committing genocide on the eggs contained within, – and the sound of a biological clock should be deafening. All these things that indicate deteriorating usefulness, have actually signalled the start of something else. Something else entirely.
I dont get called sweetheart any more. People dont confuse me with the tea girl any more. I dont get people looking at me, like I really should be shunted back to double chemistry. And the incongruence between a fresh face, and the life I live, is no longer apparent.
I dont get people astounded that a the blonde girl in heels, with the baby face, actually has a working knowledge of economics, or middle eastern politics, or can grasp philosophical concepts. The dismissal of who I am, because I happened to be a girl who fit in with conventional norms of what a pretty girl is supposed to be, has stopped. Not altogether, but enough for there to be a noticeable difference in my life.
Without those dismissals, I have changed. I dont feel the need to justify my existence. I know who I am, and when I say something, I know that that view is worth as much, and is considered as the view of the person I am addressing. There is no confusion for the person I am addressing, no incongruence between what they see before them, and what they hear coming out of my mouth. My idealism has been tempered slowly over the years by pragmatism, but the principles remain unchanged.
The imperfections that age is slowly bringing(and lets face it, at 31 the ‘deterioration’ is only just starting) havent even made me look worse.
The fact that I am not constantly aware of my appearance, or how it might be perceived= no longer worried about the dissonance between the appearance and the reality- has led to a comfort in my own skin, which shows itself when I carry myself, in the way I dress, and in the expression that I hold. No longer the ideal of a pretty girl, I now look like the grown woman that I am.
Unap0logetic. And I have to say, if this is what being in your thirties does. If losing what society appears to prize in women above all else, means being allowed to be who I am- then long may it continue. May the arse sag, the crows land round my eyes, and the waist spread. May the skin wrinkle- because each of those changes, I will earn. They are a sign, that I am no longer 21 and pretending to be a grown up. Each line and sag, is another sign that not only am I learning to live in the world, but that I HAVE lived in the world. If you dont mind, now that the neurosis of early youth are fading, I am not sure I want to swap them with a new bunch of fears, that god forbid, I might age.
And the security that comes with that, which I have barely tasted- seems a whole lot more fun, than constantly worrying about how others perceive me, about whether I will be taken seriously, whether I fit the ideal.
So Happy 31st Birthday to me, and I hope that the feelings that my thirties brought continue- because quite honestly- if this is 31, then 41, 51, 61, can only be fucking amazing. If each of the lines that my face shows, is a little more wisdom, and a little more knowledge, and a little bit of my contribution to the world- then I want a face like an A=Z of Britain. The understanding of the world, that is only just beginning, allows me to enjoy the world, in a way that looking 21 never did.
Just a quick one. Quote of the century- from David Mitchell in todays Observer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/19/david-mitchell-cricket-air-travel
(Sorry in advance- this is probably a moan).
The day starts innocently enough. Radio4, tea, Rachel squishing cereal she has no intention of eating. We discuss our plans. She thinks we should go to a toy shop, on a boat, and to the park. I agree the park, but think we should probably clean up and pop in to see my friend. Slight disagreement-is over quickly.
Then the tax credits notice arrives. I read the letter. The 4 page letter. Then the neighbour brings one that has accidentally been delivered to her house. Another four sheets of incomprehensible jargon, providing two seperate breakdowns of payments that I dont understand. The warning at the bottom suggests that I might find myself in prison being flogged by a torturer left over from Thatcherite days, and that I will have sell Rachel into slavery, if I have not notified them of any important errors.
It isnt that I am stupid- although I am nowhere near as smart as I think I am. These letters are just not even english, and follow distorted logic, that has never found it into my old philosophy books. THe payment is awarded on the basis of what I might earn, even though, as my other posts on this blog have shown- my ‘earnings’ are slightly unpredictable. It is broken down into different forms of tax credits- and the actual award isnt decided until next tax year begins. Any overpayment will be recovered swiftly- and without consideration of my selfish need to eat.
I figure it might be like parents evenings, where they cant say what they need in the school report, and maybe I need a person to explain it to dumb old me. So I ring the ‘help’ line. I listen to the menus, which each take minutes, only to find that I am a miscellaneous enquiry, which does not fit into these menus. I press 5, and it tells me they are very busy, and cuts me off. Now pardon me, but I am also very busy- and I bet they dont have a two year old demanding to put a pull up on the cat, cos he has just pooed at the bottom of the stairs.
The smell of cat poo wafts in, and Rachel starts to bore of my preoccupation with the telephone. She asks if I am on the phone to the ‘naughty lady'(she means the woman at British Gas, who I may or not have shouted at so loudly, taht even though it was 6 months ago, it is imprinted on Rachels developing consciousness). I am on hold. Then I am cut off. I redial. I go through the menus. I get through to a person, after repeating this several times. I explain that I need to discuss my award for the year, and she asks if I need to appeal. I explain I dont know, because I cant make head nor tail of it. She tells me that they won a prize for ‘plain english’- I suppress the urge to wet myself laughing. Mainly because Rachel has been upstairs for a few minutes, and is being suspiciously quiet. Partly because I am guessing that this person has been dealing with people like me all morning, and would quite like to be at home watching Saturday morning television.
My award explained- it is very simple. I will receive x amount for the next 52 weeks, on the basis of what I have told them.
I feel relieved, I go to get dressed. There are puddles on the floor and the sound of dripping water. This is clearly not good.
I go upstairs, and the bath is overflowing. I have a bath designed for two people. So it has been a while- testament to the efficiency of the tax credits helpline. Rachel has adopted a face of innocence, and explains she was helping me, by running herself a bath. I wade into the bathroom, turn off the water. I plaster a smile on my face. I go downstairs, I sit on the step, and I light a cigarette. I smoke it.
Rachel is clearly aware that there is something wrong- but I cant shout at her. because shouting only works(if ever) if its quite calmly done. If I had shouted, I think I may possibly have sounded like one of those awful parents in precints, effing and jeffing at their frightened looking children, while dragging them along by the arm. I may not be perfect but I know enough to know, that when I am truly angry- letting rip at my daughter is not nice- especially as she barely has the cognitive development to control her own bowels. However in the absence of anyone else to get angry at, and a responsibility not to let my anger show- I am left without even the option of just sitting there seething, and so I pretend I am not.
I survey the damage. I think it will dry out. My house is now covered in every towel I own, which will need to be washed. And there will need to be considerable mopping. Rachel will have to be occupied while this happens, and we still need to go and do the jobs we already had to do. She will be upset if we dont go to the park like we promised, so that will also have to be done. My Saturday night will be defined not by glamour and excess, but mopping, washing, and cleaning. I dont get to sit and whinge, or shout. I am the adult- and there isnt another adult here, who is sufficiently mature enough to process my whinging- and if I whinge at Rachel she will think its her fault. This is the problem with being a parent. Occasionally, you have to grit your teeth, and actually make the choice to be the grown up- when you would much rather sit and stamp your feet, and shout about how unfair it is.
And I havent even tackled the cat poo. Rachel has passed out on the couch, its tiring being two.
This is blatantly plagiarised from my friend Wolf Closterman(yes, that is his name, and you, sniggering up the back should really stop…). For the benefit of anyone who didn’t watch Torchwood, and who feels they wish to know what the fuss is about, Wolf has created this detailed synopsis for you.
”Here we go: Children on Earth, a summary
Aliens turn up.
Aliens: hey, UK, you know back in 19-whenever it was, when we came last time, and you gave us a “gift” of 20 kids no one would miss?
Shady Civil Servant: Yes, but we don’t like to talk about it.
Aliens: We want MORE kiddies. They’re like crack.
Shady Civil Servant: Er, no?
Aliens: SILENCE! I KILL YOU!
Shady Civil Servant: OK, OK, we’ll see what we can do
Torchwood: La-de-da, we’re going about our business all innocently
Shady Civil Servant, to PM: Excuse me Mr PM, these aliens have turned up. They might tell people that they were here before and we gave them kids. Can’t have people finding that out.
PM: You’re quite right. Kill everyone that knew about it. But I didn’t say that. I like fluffy kittens.
Shady Civil Servant: OK. Excuse me, faithful assistant?
Faithful Assistant: Yes?
Shady Civil Servant: Please have these people killed. Joe Nobody. Fred Nobody. Oh, and Torchwood.
Faithful Assistant: Er, OK (sends email, reading “Kill these peoples”)
Joe Nobody: Is ded
Fred Nobody: Is ded
Mahoosive bomb: ASPLODEY!!
Torchwood: Ouch. But, you know, you missed.
Civil Servant: Darn.
Aliens: WHERE ARE OUR KIDS?! I CAN HAS KIDS NAO?
Civil Servant: We can give you … er … four. That no one will miss. Is that enough?
Aliens: NO! I KILLL YOU! WE WANT ELEVENTY BILLION CHILDRENS!
Civil Servant: All right, all right. We must call a secret meeting of lots of important people.
Secret meeting: We must choose who to give them. Er. Give them all the thickos.
Police: Oi! Thicko children. Get into this bus, all of you, we’re going to give you to the aliens.
Children: NOOOO
Parents: OI! No takey our childrens!
Police: Shut it, you, I hit you with sticks.
Parents: Ow.
Aliens: OOOh, yummy. Childrens. Yum. We use them as drugs you know. Cos we’re terribly evil.
Torchwood: NOOO! You no takey childrens!
Aliens: OK, I KILL YOU!
Whole building: I ded.
Ianto Jones, member of Torchwood, boyfriend of Captain Jack Harkness: I ded.
Captain Jack: Hello. My name is Captain Jack Harkness. You killed my boyfriend. Prepare to die! (Valiantly runs away)
Aliens: Childrens. Yummy. Yum yum yum.
PM: Excuse me, Civil Servant bloke, we’re going to feed your two lovely daughters to the aliens
Civil Servant Bloke: Er. Very good, Mr PM. Thank you.
Civil Servant Bloke: Escuse me childrens, and lovely wife, I need to tell you something.
Childrens: Yes Daddy?
Civil Servant Bloke: Um. Look into this.
Childrens: Is that a gun, daddy?
Civil Servant Bloke: No no. It’s a kitten. *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*…. *BANG*
Childrens: is dead.
Wife: is ded.
Civil Servant Bloke: is ded.
Captain Jack: Right, I can stop the aliens by using this macguffin here. All I need is one expendible child, who will die horribly. Now, where is my grown-up daughter who was introduced at the very beginning of this episode for no apparent reason, and my cute blonde haired grandchild? Oh, there you both are.
Grown up daugher: No, don’t do it, Dad!
Captain Jack: sorry, I have to. Blonde haired grandchild, stand there, and I’ll give you a kitten.
Blonde haired grandchild: OK, Uncle Jack. I wuv you.
Captain Jack: That’s nice, now just wait there while I turn on this microwave oven.
Grandchild: is ded.
Aliens: are ded.
World: celebrates.
Grown up daughter: Tut
Jack: oh, no, I shall run away to the stars!
The end.
…this link was written 40 years ago- yet still remains true for a significant proportion of my female friends.