Saturday 30 May 2009

E.T.

Maybe this is wrong - you tell me - but we have got Sproglet bang into his movies. (By the way, we didn't force the kid - we haven't like strapped him into chair and forced his eyes open. He just loves to watch). Oh yes, he gobbles them up.. So much, he forgets to gobble up his dinner while he gorges on a DVD... First time he went to the movies he caught Ratatouille when he was the tender age of one. He sat in the front row, in complete awe, eating tangerine segments before running round the front of the cinema with his duckie, waving it madly in jubilation. Well, Ratatouille is brilliant, so fair dues.

Next up was 'Horton hears a Who' which he LOVED - in fact so much, his Dad took him to see it another time (think Husband was jealous that Sproglet and I had bonded over Dr Seuss). Sproglet followed this with Wall-E, Bolt, Monsters V Aliens... But last week, Husband took Sproglet to his first ever non-cartoon movie - Night at the Museum 2 (forgive us - it the only child friendly movie on). Feeling guilty, last night I rented ET - start him young on Spielberg, why not, and after all, the director himself says that it is his favourite of all his films.

Sproglet is obsessed with it now. While I try not to lose an eyeball every time the flower curls up into itself, and ET goes that pasty white colour, Sproglet sits, mouth agape. 3 weeks shy of his 3rd b'day and he knows good story telling, bless him. Mind you, he sat through the dire Night at the Museum 2 - so what does he know? There again, he knows that Monsters Inc is superior to Cars, so he aint stupid.

When should I start him on a touch of Burton? Never too early I say... Bless my son for loving my hobby, and his Dad's. Nature or nurture? I'd say that at this young age, it's gotta be nature - no? Whatever it is - long may it last. More than anything, it reminds me that quality films stand the test of time, and watching them with him is like seeing them for the first time. Everyone's a winner.

Wednesday 20 May 2009

Shoe fetish....

My palms sweat. I begin making calculations of how I could pay these off in about 2037... I touch them, try them on, stroke the fine leather, marvel at the delicate curved heel. Then I step away. Move away from the amazing shoes Crummymummy - the ones you cannot afford and even if you did, you aint got any place to wear them to.

I blame the fact I worked on a fashion show in '97 - back in the day when London was officially swinging - Patsy and Liam graced the cover of vanity Fair magazine and I interviewed (moody) Kate Moss at the grand old opening of London Fashion Week, where she wore a union jack Clements Ribero jumper and the paps kept asking her to sit on the steps so they could try and get a photo up her skirt.

During a Vivienne Westwood show I spied Manolo Blahnik and I vaulted over to him, full of enthusiasm for his artistry and hoping that at some stage he'd offer me a free pair. Did he heck. He was generous, warm and entertaining even if he did look at me like I'd arrived from Mars. I couldn't have given a stuff about the clothes - frock after frock draped on half starved pre-pubescent girls didn't rock my world - but what was on their feet did.

I covered - sorry, I lied my way into - Stella McCartney's first ever collection show in Paris - Sep 97. Christian Louboutin designed the shows. In fact I have to thank him for helping me to get in; see I interviewed him just before the show, at his Parisian studios. I stroked about a million shoes, I may even have licked one, and he looked amused, if somewhat unnerved. I asked him if we could be his plus one at Stella's big show but he refused, giving me a small post it note with the name of the head of Chloe on it. I brandished this post it at the bouncers on the door - both the size of houses - as if my life depended on meeting 'Patrick De La Tour.' I breezed in, my camera man set up his legs, camera and boom - the show started with Helena Christiansen swinging her hips down the catwalk. Afterwards, delighted by my coup, I was startled by one of said bouncers pointing his chubby finger at me and saying 'Follow me - now!' He parted the sea of photographers and hangers on like Moses and the red sea and marched me (hanging on to my camera man with my umbilical cord mic) up to a tall greying Frenchman. It was Mr De La Tour. He looked at me as if to say 'who in god's name are you?'

I managed to make some banal small talk about what a wonderful show (think I said darling a few times in true fashion speak) before rushing over to grab the first post-show interview with the very lovely Stella McCartney. I remember she dedicated the show to her (then alive) Mother Linda and was wearing a fitted grey suit. I pranced off, feeling somewhat high at my audacity.

But no shoes. In all my seasons on that wretched fashion show, working for a wizened old bitch in her late 30s who hated anyone younger and more talented than her (easy to do on both counts) and tearing round lying my way into shows, as if I would die without filming a fucking jewelled bit of tat by some coked up fake tanned asshole designer - I never got one freebie. Not one.

Bitter? Moi? This weekend I am off shopping and will I indulge in something sexy and high and impossibly glam? If it is under £70... maybe!

Wednesday 13 May 2009

An email I was sent today...

made me laugh out loud. Enjoy...

THE NEXT
SURVIVOR SERIES


Six married men will be
dropped on an island
with one car and
3 kids each for
six weeks.


Each kid will play
two sports
and either take music
or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must
take care of his 3 kids;
keep his assigned
house clean,
correct all homework,
and
complete science projects,
cook, do laundry,
and pay a list of
'pretend' bills with
not enough money.

In addition, each man
will have to budget
in money
for groceries each
week.

Each man
must remember the
birthdays
of all their friends
and relatives,
and send cards out
on time--no Emailing.

Each man must also
take each child to a
doctor's appointment,
a dentist appointment
and a
haircut appointment.

He must make
one unscheduled and
inconvenient visit per
child to the A & E.

He must also
make biscuits or cakes
for a social function..

Each man will be
responsible for
decorating his own
assigned house,
planting flowers outside
and keeping it presentable
at all times.

The men will only
have access to television
when the kids are asleep
and all chores are done.


The men must
shave their legs,
wear makeup daily,
adorn himself with jewellery,
wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes,
keep fingernails polished
and eyebrows groomed.

During one of the six weeks,
the men will have to endure
severe abdominal cramps,
back aches,
and have extreme,
unexplained mood swings
but never once complain
or slow down from
other duties.


They must attend
weekly school meetings,
church, and find time
at least once to spend the
afternoon at the park or
a similar setting..

They will need to
read a book to the kids
each night and in the
morning,
feed them, dress them,
brush their teeth and
comb their hair by 8:00 am.


A test will be given at the
end of the six weeks,
and each father will
be required to know
all of the following
information:
each child's birthday,
height, weight,
shoe size, clothes size
and doctor's name.
Also the child's
weight at birth,
length, time of birth,
and length of labour,
each child's favourite colour,
middle name,
favourite snack,
favourite song,
favourite drink,
favourite toy,
biggest fear and
what they want to be
when they grow up.



All the above must be completed whilst working
in either full time
(preferably) or part time
employment
to assist in
the financial input for
the family.

The kids vote them off
the island
based on performance.
The last man wins only if...
he still has enough energy
to be intimate with his
spouse at a moment's
notice.


If the last man does win,
he can play the game over
and over and over again
for the next 18-25 years
eventually earning the
right
To be called Mum!


After you get done laughing,
send this to as many
females as you
think will get a laugh
out of it and as many
men as you think
can handle it!
Just don't send it back
to me....
I'm going to bed.

Friday 8 May 2009

Laura's window

So I started therapy today. Husband even took the day off work so he could pick up Sproglet and I could make the appointment. Her name is Laura - isn't that a nice girl, calm lady, I'm gonna relax the hell out of you, kind of name?

I didn't choose her - she is the therapist that deals with folk at my Dr's surgery - so I kinda got her through default. If I didn't like her I don't have to accept her - but she is lots older, with a kindly face and a gentle manner and a reassuring line of questions and most importantly she has these wonderful trees just outside her office window, that brush their heavy rustling branches against the pane as I talk, in a hypnotising rhythmic motion. I feel better seeing some green - don't ask me why.

And boy did she ask me some questions that I just didn't have the answer to. What would happen if I went a bit out there crazy, and just for once, went to bed without making sure all the cushions were straight and puffed out on the ridiculously expensive, but needs plumping daily, sofa? I didn't know... What if, I just let things go - what would happen - would the freakin sky fall in? Maybe, I'm not sure; but if I don't know - then why do I do it in the first place??

What if eh, I didn't have to be relentlessly racing through my life from one huge goal to the other - always having to do more, better, faster? What would I do if I just stopped? For a just a moment. Breathed. Relaxed. Just was. I've never really done it. My idea of doing it is going to the movies but technically that isn't the same. Why I am so goddamn driven - but not necessarily in a good way. Good way: Get jobs that I want. Bad way: house has to be in order, tidy and did I say in order? Why can't anyone else - namely Husband - see what needs to be done and do it - now!! Why can't he see what I see? What invisibly screams at me to be seen?

We went back in time - all those sad old tales you have said drunkenly and soberly so many times that you almost think they can't be real anymore - like some urban myth. The tears bubble up and spill when you realise that this is all because you are anxious. You were anxious. You can't remember a day in your life when you were not full of anxiety and you didn't even know it.

It is exhausting being in my head. I often wish I wasn't. Not in some woeful suicidal fashion - just that I wish I could not have to be doing. I could stand still and appreciate where I am and with whom. I try to do this sometimes - I am so busy trying to have this moment, I'm thinking about the moment way too much and it has to be a moment, and the essence of having to be a moment means it automatically isn't one.

The good old NHS give me 7 free sessions - whenever the hell I can fit them, god only knows. I have 6 to go... I'm really wondering where this will take me. I'm hoping to a calmer place.

Like the one just outside Laura's window.

Wednesday 6 May 2009

Time

Oh if only I could buy it. Or get a starbucks style card that I could bank up minutes on it. Then when I needed to I could grab a few half hours here and there to help me have a 28 hour day or 46 hour day - or just a day where I could achieve all I need to achieve and still have time for some much needed eyebrow threading.

My life just flies by. One minute it is in the shower, lathering up, giving my arse a good scrub with 'buffy the backside slayer' (love that name - love it!) from Lush bath shop - and the next I am rubbing off my mascara and clambering between the sheets, trying to read the Sunday papers from two Sundays ago. I just never have the time I need.

To spring clean, to read books piled by my bed, to get a bikini wax so as someone at the local pool doesn't think I have a tarantula crawling down my thigh as things have got so outta control down there, to do some writing, to watch all the films I've stored on Sky + (which is on pause now while I write this - I need more time to fecking blog!), to sort out the boxes that are still not unpacked a year after we moved in here, to draw stuff with sproglet, to be a Samaritan again, to see an afternoon movie with a coffee in an empty cinema, to meander - I never meander any more, to window shop on Oxford St, to have a make-up play in Mac and buy glittery eyeshadow that I will never wear because I am not 16 and I do not go to clubs (not that I ever really did), to exercise and shift the ten pounds that I hate that sits on my stomach - which is not hard as we have Wii fit and a fucking exercise bike that practically talks to you in our basement and still I have no time to get on it!!!!

I blink and the day is gone - and my lists. Man my lists just keep growing - and they are so tedious and boring and I just want to finish them and forget about them - but there is always something to add to them that is even more tedious... Now I know what I did before I had Sproglet and ironically when I worked part time. I had so much TIME - I went to the gym and had a better stomach - and I saw tonnes of movies and I read lots of books and I knew things about things and I always had well groomed nether regions!

Ok - rant over. I have to go and sort lunch for tomorrow and sproglets clothes and un-pause this sky + and watch the Apprentice and read two Sunday supplements and floss and comb and arrgggghhhhhhhhhhh all before bed.

Maybe I don't need time - maybe I just need my own WIFE.