Good lord.

Mummy, enquired Small Person yesterday, when can we tidy out my wardrobe?

Small Person's wardrobe is the stuff of nightmares. Ancient nursery school drawings jostle with long-since-forgotten gloves; board games with vital pieces missing flumpf beneath the weight of all those bloody shoes that only fit for a five-minute window before being tossed aside. Occasionally, the Cat pops in there for a nose around, most likely streaking out minutes later in a trail of tinsel, french knitting and, ironically, random bits of Mousetrap*.

We are long overdue for a clearout of said black hole. Our usual routine is to spend a weekend sometime soon after Christmas taking every single Barbie shoe, stray bead and Snakes and Ladders set and plonking them in a twisted heap on the bedroom carpet. We then circle it in a style reminiscent of small Favela children, picking out choice items to take to the local children's centre before becoming bored with the whole thing and simply decanting everything en masse into fourteen black bin bags which are taken to the tip for the Dump-Monkeys to pore over at their leisure.

Anyway. I digress.

I am currently laid up after another bout of knee surgery. I am bruised on both legs from thigh to calf and am walking like Ben Shephard after a secretive night out in West London. I cannot clear out a wardrobe. I can hardly dress myself.

So.

We'll do it soon my love, I reassure. Why is it so important right now?

Because, Mummy, my alien offspring replies, I want to turn it into a place where I can pray to god.

Um, halp???

I am relishing the first time she traipses into her classroom and announces that Mummy turned the wardrobe into a place for her to pray to Jeebus. See you on the register, Karen Matthews....

* I know. Who am I kidding? Bratz Dolls and crack pipes. Happy now?

o rly? *

>>I love stuffed french toast. I love every stuffed french toast recipe I've ever had, actually, but especially the ones stuffed with cream cheese.When we were at the shore this past August, we visited The Blue Plate Dinner and the IHOP, and ate stuffed french toast in both places. They were sweet, creamy, and wonderful<<

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I'm only jealous because I have gained so much weight over Christmas that you can hear me creaking as I ever-so-gently expand. Bah.

* Yes, Yes. I'm going to hell. Whatever.

Wrongest. Suggestion. Ever.

So anyway.

We went to the local for lunch on Saturday. It's a weekly treat for us - we take the papers, drink some beer and people-watch. It's great for people-watching, our local.

It's quite good for overheard-in-the-pub stuff too, as it turns out. Those of you of a nervous disposition may want to click away now.

I'm in the loo. A woman and a small child enter the adjacent cubicle and have one of those mother-toddler conversations that people can't resist having in these situations. Having been loudly praised for displaying a remarkable ability to have a wee, the small girl began stropping out about not being able to leave the cubicle right now.

Naturally, the mother was keen to stay, with the door firmly locked, until she too had done a wee (really - this was all discussed loudly and in great detail). Child wasn't having any of it and started shouting in a manner that to my mind should have won her a sharp slap to the back of her legs. Never did me any harm. Etc.

I'm washing my hands and marvelling at the total lack of self-concsiousness that comes as part of the territory when you're the mother of a small person, when the following exchange occurred and completely blew my mind....

Mother: NO, smallperson! You must stay here until Mummy's done a wee! Leave the door alone!

Child: NONONONONONO I WANT TO GO RIGHT NOW! NOW!

Mother: Oh, but darling. Mummy needs a wee too. Please don't unlock the door.

Child: I AM! I AM UNLOCK THE DOOR! I GOING NOW!!

Mother (presumably in an attempt to incentivise the little bastard darling to stay): Oh, smallperson. Look! Do you want to help Mummy wipe her bottom?


Ohgodohgodohgod. I exited stage left, scarred for life.

Please tell me she didn't mean that?

Please?

(I Need a) Caffeine Bomb...

Do not adjust your set.

Plese also disrgard ayn tpyos/

In the words of Kerry Katona (please bellow in an indignant Warrington accent): "I'm nor jrunk! Ish my medcayshun!".

You see, to all intents and purposes, Prozac is a marvellous thing. I have spent most of the Autumn travelling for work, flying to and from such exotic locations as Odessa, Istanbul and Liverpool. This time last year I couldn't have gone to the shop up the road without a full medical escort and intravenous gin.

However, the one side-effect I do suffer with is insomnia. Oh, hang on - and when I do sleep I have vivid, intense, exhausting dreams. You try feeling rested when you've spent your sleeping hours variously captaining gigantic cruise ships, shoplifting from Habitat and trying to get off with all the Kings of Leon at the same time. It's not easy, let me tell you.

So anyway. We both (me and the Other Half) grew tired of me waking us up shrieking and flailing four times a night, of me waking him up because, well, I was awake, and of both being awake from 6am every Saturday due to me being all wobbly from yet another full-length night horror featuring my mother.

I went back to the GP yesterday and querulously asked whether there was anything he could prescribe in the short term to help me sleep. Oh, yes! There was!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I proudly present Nozinan. Jealous, kids? Wish you too could treat simple insomnia with a powerful anti-psychotic which is also used as a painkiller in palliative care for patients with late-stage cancer? Want to run the gauntlet of various terrifying* side-effects? Ha! You should be so lucky!

I started them last night. I took 12.5mg at 9pm, and by 9.25 was in a sort of waking coma** - it's like being really, really stoned but without the paranoia and munchies. I slept like the dead and woke up this morning feeling like I'd been run over by a marshmallow steamroller. I arrived at my desk and showed my boss my eyes - he was rather impressed that my pupils were different sizes. I was completely off my gourd until around lunchtime.

Of course, this has raised serious concerns with me and I don't know what to do for the best.

Should I carry on taking them or start selling them?


* The one that bothers me the most is the threat of unwanted and persistent erections. Brr. Like I don't have enough to worry about.

** Seriously though - the maximum daily dosage for the treatment of schizophrenia is 1000mg. Talk about your chemical cosh....

I've sort of fused Flashdance with MC Hammer shit.

A while ago, there were two men and four women in my department.

It was a strange and difficult time. A time in which, if a woman made a sensible business decision, it would be roundly ignored until one of the men decided it was their decision after all and the idea would be immediately implemented.

We soon realised our problem. We didn’t have penises! Men can’t hear a business conversation if someone without a penis is talking!

The obvious solution was to go to Ann Summers* and buy a packet of cardboard penis headbands, as hilariously disported on hen nights across this fair land. I have one, my manager has one, my assistants both had one. If we wanted to be heard we would put our Cock Hat on to ensure that we were taken seriously.

Fast-forward four months. One of the male managers left, so the Cock Hats were relegated to the sidelines.

One of my assistants left a little while ago - her replacement started today.

Imagine his surprise when he opened the bottom drawer of his new desk and saw a giant, vivid cardboard penis squinting back at him.

I don’t suppose it helps much that he’s gay. Now I am faced with a new assistant who thinks that misplaced homophobic humour is to be foisted upon him at any given opportunity.

I am David Brent.

* The Patron Saint of Nylon

Eh?

So anyway, a colleague wandered past my desk today and cheerily opined that I look just like (and I quote) a "Rasta Man".

Um, thanks? Not quite the look I was going for and I'm still puzzled as to how a thirty-five year old white girl, even one with dreadlocks, manages to achieve it?

People. Meh.

And yes, I will post properly soon but there's all manner of things happening at the moment and I am struggling to find the time. I know. Welcome to my pity party.

Urk.

Word to the wise, ladies and gentlemen.....

Never work with Norwegians.

More specifically, don't engage them in conversation while you're eating.

You're welcome.

Things that make me itch..

In a record-breaking display of constistency, Middling Person (for she is now eight-and-half and not Small any more) has headlice.

Again.

For the third (third!) time in six weeks.

Now, I know headlice are an occupational hazard when you spend your time amongst thirty-odd weird-smelling kids from homes with varying degress of hygiene but please? If your child is itchy and scratching and you can see their hair moving in a miniature Mexican wave from across the living room? Check their hair! Try treating the headlice! That way, it won't cost me eight quid a fortnight to continously murder the little six-legged horrors every time they crawl back across into Middling Person's hair during a particularly close-run wordsearch, or something.

When I was at school the Nit Nurse would loom large in the classroom every three weeks, bearing the Sacred Bowl of Dettol and a bitey metal comb. Scalps would be scraped and the first hint of organic life would result in immediate, humiliating suspension with a stern admonishment to your parents not to let you within forty feet of another person until you were deemed to be Clean.

Never did me any harm. Etc.

In other news, it seems that some American's don't want to vote Obama because his name sounds a bit like "Osama". For the sake of political balance I would like to point out to Republican supporters that "McCain" rhymes with "aeroplane", and that, friends and neighbours, is what the evil Muslims used to bring down the Twin Towers.

So think on. Not so clear-cut now, is it?

Outrage! Outrage! Outrage!!!!1!

Twenty seven thousand people.

Twenty seven thousand people??

Really?

Admittedly, I’m perhaps not the best person to have any perspective on this, but seriously? You’d think that Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross had taken it in turns to dry-rape the Pope while giving Nazi salutes and murdering puppies.

Thank the gods for the Daily Mail, that’s all I can say. Otherwise we would never have known that a man who used to be on the telly agreed to be interviewed on the radio and gave them his phone number and then, presumably, popped out for ten minutes to distribute alms to the poor and cure the sick, and some men, one of whom had shagged his pure, innocent stripper-in-a-group-called-Satanic-Sluts granddaughter, left messages pertaining to this on his answerphone and lots of people heard it go out on the radio and didn’t mind at all and the sweet, kindly grandfather himself didn’t even seem to mind that much but, really, we should all storm the BBC with flaming torches and pitchforks and demand that the heads of the two men who haven’t really done anything much are immediately displayed on pointy sticks in Reception as a warning to all those evil, wicked purveyors of filth whose sole intention is to bring about the downfall of civilisation as we know it via that all-powerful, omniscient medium of Light Entertainment that we will not stand for this.

I’ll leave the last word on the subject to the estimable “Hughes, Coventry” who was so incensed that he had to rush to his computer a full three days after the "story" broke and let the BBC know exactly how much people have been offended:

Where have all the roll models gone. What we need is good old fashioned standards............ Get rid of this sick filth that is invading our lives, take them off the air permentantly

Well done that man. I am confident that you speak for all of us.

*breathes*

UPDATE: Now over thirty thousand people have complained! How will we survive this?!

Six Things

1) We got married. The bride wore black, the groom wore black and pink, the bride's stepmother wore a fixed grimace. Men in wedding dresses played punk music at our wedding reception and the Other Half drank sixteen vodka Red Bulls and didn't sleep for 56 hours straight. It was aces.

2) We went on our honeymoon. It rained. The tent leaked. We'd seen all the bands before and following a hissed conversation (the sort you have when you're in public and can't just yell at each other) I acquiesced to the Other Half's desire to leave a day early. We had to be towed out by a tractor. I didn't have a nervous breakdown on the way home. It was aces.

3) I have dreadlocks again after 12 years without. It's much more complicated this time - there's special shampoos and gels and waxes that mean you can keep them (relatively) clean. This has the disadvantage of making them much more high maintenance but the distinct advantage of meaning I don't smell like a tramp's blanket this time round. Well, my hair doesn't, at least. It is aces.

4) I have travelled extensively for work over the last five weeks and have seen some lovely airports. Odessa stands out as the favourite - you don't get dead dogs on the pavement outside Charles de Gaulle, do you? Travelling is not nearly as glamorous as you might think. Not unless endless corridors and waiting rooms and annoying people and no legroom are your idea of glamour, that is. It was not aces.

5) I had MRI scans on both my knees last week and meet the consultant next week. I am too young for new knees - however I may end up with partial replacements. I do not see the logic of this. I'm going private though, so any future surgery will be without added MRSA. Which is aces.

6) There is no number six.

There. Who says you should have something to say before you open your mouth? I blame Sarah Silverman.

*waves*

Um.

Hello.

So anyway, I went over there to start a new blog but my heart wasn't in it.

I've been travelling for work for the last few weeks and have realised that I spend most of my downtime composing blog posts in my head. So I thought, why not? Why not use my time and my identity to continue bleating at strangers about, you know, how hard everything is?

You lot are all still writing away - all my old friends. Time to jump back in the water.

Oh, and if anyone was thinking of booking a holiday on a cruise ship? Trust me. Don't. The ships are riddled with filthy dirty pensioners who enjoy nothing more than moaning and spreading unpleasant gastric complaints...

Ooh! Here I am!

New Beginnings

Well, that's it.

Three years, three hundred and eighty five posts, thousands of comments left, friends and enemies made along the way.

I'm shutting up shop. Properly.

It's all got too public. I'm losing my anonymity and I'm losing my edge. Back to basics is the order of the day. I'd quite like to take you with me though, if you'd care to join me.

My email address is on my Blogger profile. Come and play somewhere quieter. Bring cocktails.

Surly Reviews: I Am Legend*

I Am Bollocks, more like. What an unmitigated, pseudo-parable pile of big dog's cock.

That is all.

* Will Smith. Will, Will, Will. Will I never learn? He is turning out so much shit that I am beginning to suspect him of being a stooge of the McGregor/Dorff axis of evil, purveyors of cinematic crapfests since time immemorial.

Here I am!

I am alive!!

Yeah yeah, I know, enough with the drama already.

So I had my surgery and I came round in the recovery room and tried to scratch my nose but the oxygen mask was in the way. Um, oxygen mask? Yup. The surgery turned out to be a little more intense than anyone had anticipated, so they had to put me under a bit deeper, which meant that I needed a little more help to wake up again. Still, up I woke.

And snuck a look under the covers and saw a great big enormous padded bandage from mid-thigh to shin on my left leg. Okay so far. Except....ow! That hurts! The nice nurse lady asked if I was in any pain. Yes, was the emphatic reply. So she had a half-whispered conversation with the anaesthetist. Who had explained to me before surgery that he would give me extra pain relief and a local into the knee joint before bringing me round. Brows were furrowed. The nurse mentioned codeine. More frowns. A decision was made.

Ladies and gentleman, I am here to tell you that morphine rocks*. It tastes a little bit like a strong gin and tonic, and brings on the most fabulous la-la-la floaty feeling. Delicious.

Upshot being (like you care) that I had a microfracture procedure on my left leg. Basically, the bone lining between femur and patella had worn away and bone was rubbing on bone, explaining the sicky graunching noise the knee made when I walked down steps**. So the rest of the rough lining was removed and lots of little tiny holes have been drilled into the knee end of my thigh bone in an effort to stimulate scar tissue to cover the exposed bone. I am signed off work for two weeks, and am partial weight-bearing on crutches for four to six weeks. I have been sternly informed that this may not help my symptoms and further surgery may be needed.

Now, the Munchausen's part of me is naturally pleased. Look at me! Proper broken! But then I remember that I have to think through every physical manoeuvre before I attempt it, and that I struggle to put my own underwear on, and that crutches are not nearly so much fun as I thought they were when I was nine and Oona Landridge broke her leg and let everyone have a go on her crutches at break time. Also, that I am getting married in fifteen weeks and have bought the most amazing pair of Fuck-Me shoes to wear and they have four and a half inch heels and dammit I want to wear them!!

So. anyway. That's where we're up to. I will naturally bore you more at every possible opportunity. Meanwhile, the cat continues to claw at my bandage and glare at me as I have disrupted her daily routine of dragging her ringpiece along the kitchen worktops while we are out of the house.

Flowers, gifts and large bottles of Bushmills in the the comments box please.

* Disclaimer: Drugs are bad, mmkay?

** You're welcome.

Nurse, the screens!

I have my knee arthroscopy tomorrow.

In order to paint a picture of my current state of mind, there follows the transcript of an email I sent to the Other Half this afternoon:

From: Surly Girl
Sent: 22 April 2008 14:18
To: Other Half

this afternoon's irrational fear:

that i won't wake up from the anaesthetic tomorrow and i haven't made a will so you don't have any custody of Small Person and the Ex takes her and she grows up all pikey and feral and works in Budgens on the fag kiosk for the rest of her life.

xxx

There, you see. I am not altogether confident about the chances of my waking up from a general anaesthetic tomorrow afternoon. This is irrational for many reasons.

I have had four general anasthaetics so far in my life. Two of them were for wisdom tooth extraction at the dentists, back before it was illegal to knock people out at the dentists (this legislation was introduced some years ago after some government bean-counter realised that people who had a general at the dentists were quite likely to die, owing to there not being an anasthetist or anything - they more sort of drugged you, pulled your teeth out and sat around with hopeful looks on their faces, silently willing you to wake up).* I have also had my adenoids removed (aged nine, left me with a pathological fear of giving urine samples that persists to this day) and, somewhat bizarrely, had an enormous verucca removed from my foot (aged seven - I don't even want to think about how big that motherfucker had to be in order to warrant a full-on operation).

So I am no stranger to pre-meds, to counting backwards, to coming to round in the recovery room with an inexplicably aching body. Only now, you see, my irrational fear extends to what might happen while a person is under the anasthetic to cause that sort of aching, exactly. I mean, for surgeons, it must be like slipping a librarian a roofy in the local nightclub. I am convinced that within half an hour of coming round, the internet will be awash with pictures of me in all sorts of unnatural positions, presided over by a succession of grinning middle-aged men in operating theatre wellies and golf club ties. Brrr.

Please, make it be alright. Only I've just started reading this really good book, you see, and I need to see how it comes out.**

See you on the other side.

* I know. This is a long, irritating sentence and could I please shut the fuck up with the "general anaesthetic" repetition already. Acknowledged.

** Yes, of course I would be more bothered about never seeing my daughter or partner again. I'm just showing off, innit?

Me me me.

Right.

Let's sort this out, shall we? I know you're there. I can see my stats. I can see you. So why the bloody hell don't you comment any more? Is it me? Have I changed?

I mean, I know most people only come here these days to look at pictures of Sarah Beeny's tits. But, give me a hand here.

Am I talking to an empty room?

[/narcissism]

Edit: I have just read this back and realise that I come off a bit Carrie Bradshaw. I am sincerely sorry. Please, do excuse me. Only I'm off to shoot myself in the head.

Overheard in (my) Office...

So anyway, we were talking (well, I was) about the cows and how at some point they’ll evolve big wide flat feet so they can breach the cattle grids and what will we all do then, and everyone said I was mental and I said well, when you’re connected to a milking machine at five in the morning and there’s a Friesian with its hoof on the switch, don’t come crying to me.

Nobody believes me about the cows but I know they are evil and are plotting to take over the world. They don’t fool me with the whole standing-around-in-fields-looking-a-bit-dim routine. Oh no. I’m smarter than that. You won’t catch me wandering through a field in a brightly coloured cagoule, blithely unaware of the cows at the end of the field all plotting and planning and waiting for the moment when, as one, they will stampede down the field and kill me with their tightly-executed kick/trample manoeuvre.

Um. Anyway. That’s not what I wanted to tell you.

What I wanted to tell you was about the extremely Dante/Randall-esque exchange that took place between my (pregnant) colleague and I, shortly after the above conversation.

Her: I don’t trust horses. I don’t trust their mouths.

Me: You don’t trust their mouths? What’s wrong with their mouths?

Her: I don’t like the teeth. Or the gums. And I don’t like the erratic lip thing.

Me: You find horses’ lips erotic? That’s wrong. Pervert.

Her: No. I said erratic. I Don’t find horses sexy. Not like you, you horsefucker.

Me: Seriously? I’m a girl. How am I going to fuck a horse?



I’m going to miss that girl when she goes on maternity leave. Even if she does find horses attractive.

The pervert.

Desperately Seeking..

..with the emphasis on "desperate".

One of the finest things about the Times of a weekend is the Encounters page.

It's a richly-jewelled wonderland of confused, hopeful egomaniacs* and I love it. Really, proper love it. All of human life is here, and the examples below are just from Men Seeking Women. Women Seeking Men is pretty much of a muchness - full of "bubbly" (annoying), "curvy" (fat), "fun-loving" (drunk) divorcees seeking "possible LTR" (I will peer through your letterbox at three in the morning until you become afraid enough to take out a restraining order against me. I will then attempt suicide and say that, although my first three husbands are entirely to blame, you certainly played a big part in my devastation and subsequent breakdown).

Anyway.

Enjoy.

- Youthful, slim gentleman, submissive, seeks very assertive, mature lady for relationship.

There's a lot of these about. See also:

- Do you have a powerful and assertive personality? Extremely fit male, 60s, with an unconventional lifestyle, seeking never-ordinary woman with a dominant attitude.

Okaaay. Now, The first guy is clearly looking for a nice lady to treat him the way Nanny used to in the big house, back between the wars. Fair do's. But the second one? To me, it smacks (no pun intended) of the sort of man who wants a full-on wrestling match every time the naughties creep up on him. No dinner and flowers on this agenda, thank you. No. It's crash mats on the living room floor and three counts or a full submission to decide the winner. Every time.

Which is all well and good, but in the personals page of the Times? Really? Aren't there a few more, um, specialist publications out there that might perhaps yield better results? Or are all those bubbly, curvy, fun-loving divorcees thinking to themselves well, it's not really my thing. But a date's a date, and it's only Heartbeat on tomorrow night. I might give him a ring. He might be nice.

Good luck, ladies.

From the guys who know what they want to a man who is clearly hoping things at least go his way slightly:

Virile, optimistic guy..

Stop right there, Mr Erectile Dysfunction. Don't be putting "optimistic" in the same sentence as "virile". Really. We all know what you mean, and it makes us feel slightly sad for you.

There are, of course, a great number of Mature, Attractive, Solvent, Athletic, Charming, Trustworthy, Gentle, Honest, Genuine, Good-Looking, Caring, Affluent, Fun-Loving and Athletic men advertising their various USPs. Taken at face value, it's like David Hasslehoff, Donald Trump and George Clooney collided at high speed and rained down sparkling lady-magnet fallout all over the page. I don't buy it though. Not really.

However, one advertisement really stood out for me. I mean, if I were single I'd be all over this one like a curvy, fun-loving rash. Ladies, strap yourselves in. I give you:

Doctor/Philosopher, 70s, retired, non-religious, WLTM analytical, scholarly lady, 59+, together to find the truth about health, psychology, longevity, relaxation, culture and ethics.

No pressure then, girls. If you're the intellectual image of Stephen Hawking in a dress, why not give him a call? It's either a future spent in knife-edged debate, sparring over the very fabric of humankind, or he wants to spend his evenings telling your stiff, rouged corpse why you'll never be as nice as Mummy was.

The decision is yours.

* Yes, thank you. It's lovely to be altogether perfect and mock people I have never met and have no idea about. Now, move along please.

Kill me now.

Please.

So anyway. We were in the pub today, which is normal for a Saturday. We take the papers and eat pub food and drink beer and banter with the bar staff and it's all good.

Except today.

Today, there's a new girl behind the bar. She's funny, and a little bit odd, and we like her. On talking, we establish that she's eighteen. Eighteen.

The conversation swung around to festivals. She went to Eastern Haze last year. I went to Glastonbury* once. We are off to Beautiful Days for our honeymoon this year.

Wow, she said. Do you have any kids?

Um, yes. I have one...

Oh, that's so cool. I wish you were my parents.

Oh.

Thanks for that. Thanks for the realisation that I am old enough to have an eighteen year old child. Thanks for relegating me to the ranks of oh-but-you're-cool-even-though-you're-old. I mean, I'm flattered and all, but really? I could have done without it.

I suppose my enthusiastic double-thumbs-up when Girls Aloud came on the jukebox didn't help. Much.

Gah.

* Please don't call it "Glasto". Please? It makes me want to kill you. Or myself. Neither of which is good, or healthy. You know?

Poorly

So, getting older. Mmm.

To summarise:

I have a horrid eye infection. My left eyelid is red and swollen and itchy and I look like a victim of domestic abuse/Heather Mills in Paul McCartney's dreams. It is rubbish. I have to put antibiotic ointment on it every two hours and my eye is so fat that my eyelashes keep leaving smears all over the inside of the lenses of my glasses. I make Olive from On the Buses look like Elle Macpherson.

I have a crap knee. I saw the surgeon last Tuesday and he thinks I have a loose fragment of something-or-other in my knee joint. I win an arthroscopy. On April 23rd. So all I have to do between now and then is give up smoking, not fall over pissed any more and try not to think about anaesthetics/blood clots/infections/earth being invaded by giant bitey squids.

I am fat. I am getting married on August 9th and have already bought my wedding dress. The more I think about how I need to lose half a stone in time for the wedding the more tortillas and garlic dip I eat. This scares me. I do not want to be the girl who gets married in jeans and a baggy t-shirt because my lack of self-control in the presence of cold sausages has rendered me totally unable to squeeze into my wedding dress. I wonder if there are bathing machines available on e-Bay, and whether the pink Cadillac we have booked as the wedding car would be able to tow one to the registrar's office. I don't think it is viable. Which worries me, so I eat toast and marmite. Which really helps.

Oh yes. I'm quite the prize.