flossing the cat

There seems to have been a terrible mistake. Someone has nominated me for The Versatile Blogger Award. (Older Mum) Versatile is not a word I associate with myself. Versatile is a word I associate with someone who is able to write a novel, become the youngest-ever managing director of a UK plc, sack a shed-load of people, and pleasure her husband AT THE SAME TIME AS giving birth. Another way of describing this kind of person might be Karren Brady*. Or smug c**t. By contrast, there are only two things I do really well. They are:   Swearing Making beans on toast However, as I am spectacularly needy and crave instant gratification, there is no way I’m turning this award down, so I must now follow the Versatile Blogger Award rules of acceptance. In other words, I must tell you seven things about myself.       (Here it is. A Design Classic, I think you’ll agree.) 1. I once challenged Dani Behr to a popularity contest. This humiliating episode happened at the ...

This week, I’ve been mostly thinking about F. R David, best known for the 1981 song 'Words'. This is not because I've developed a sexual interest in bouffant hairstyles or people who wear sunglasses indoors, but because the opening line of 'Words' - "Words don’t come easy to me" - whilst it doesn't rival the expressions of alienation found in, say, Kerouac - does describe the kind of week I've had.  Simply put, every day this week has brought with it a phrase or word that I have literally NEVER EVER heard before. In fact, there have been occasions when I’ve thought: I’ve probably just had a stroke and lost the capacity to understand language. Last Saturday, for instance, we took the kids to McDonalds.  (Before you keel over with horror, this is NOT my normal routine. Normally, I would, ahem, plate up a lovingly prepared lunch of artisan-baked breads and antipasti, obviously . ) But on  Saturday, we were busy, and I thought, heck, what’s wr...

Today, I danced in the kitchen in my pyjamas like the alcoholic housewife that I probably am.  At my feet lay a trodden banana; on the kitchen worktop, an obese fly barfing on a piece of toast; at my side, an overflowing bin smelling of, erm, what’s it called again, that most evocative of smells, oh yes, SHIT. But did I care? No I didn’t. I just danced and I danced and I fantasised. About crazy lovely stuff. And why was I dancing? Well, because I was listening to some tunes for a ‘Music Therapy’ blog I’ve been tagged to write by the awesomely prolific Motherventing and Older Single Mum . (Now, before I start, I want to point out that when I say ‘therapy’ I don’t mean “real” therapy, oh no, no, NO, I don’t need “real” therapy, not at all, I’m just tired, real tired, that’s all. Hey, just because I might have stopped dancing at one point, and started weeping for no apparent reason, and then, having caught sight of myself in the mirror, started punching myself in the thigh and screa...

I always wanted a cool nickname. As cool as The Fonz or Mr. October, or cute and sexy like, you know, Pussy Galore.   Well today the dream died. It happened whilst I was dropping the kids off at school. I was late as usual, and all psyched up to negotiate the school’s door security (double doors, outer lobby, entry buzzer concealed behind massive papier-mache dinosaur, more double doors, another lobby, you get the picture), when a woman I know suddenly said, “Look at you, Mrs Plod-Along. I love your style.” Mrs Plod-Along?  MRS.PLOD.ALONG? Deep breath. Chill out. I know that what she really meant was “I love your devil-may-care attitude towards lateness.” (How could she know that beneath my carefree exterior lies pain, paranoia, exhaustion and self-loathing?) But still! Mrs Plod-Along!  Are you sure? Don’t you mean Pussy Galore? Didn’t you see the way I emerged Bond-Girl-like from those puddles at the other end of the yard? For fucksakes. And so it is that ‘Mrs ...

I live within walking distance of my children’s school, a beautiful seven-minute stroll through a forest of ivy-clad oak trees, ferns, ladybirds, and a stream. But before you stab me in the face with your car keys, let me tell you what it’s really like. First, there’s the seven-minute thing. 'Seven minutes' invites complacency. If you’re told that a journey will take you seven minutes, you think, “Oh, I’ll be there in no time .” So you fuck about. Seven minutes is not like an hour, which you take seriously, which you allow time for. If you live within a seven-minute-walk of your children’s school, you either need to be a) Allyson Lewis, whose bestseller ‘The Seven Minute Difference’ shows you how to break your actions into seven-minute micro-actions (but who, sadly, looks like a reptile) or you need b) an Atomic Clock that loses less than one second every BILLION years and also shouts at you. Now I don’t have an Atomic Clock. I have a collection of time-keeping devices that a...

Today is the day before Bin Day. And although it’s only ten o clock in the morning, I am already in the grip of pre-Bin Day nerves. For those of you blessed with a normal psychological profile, pre-bin day nerves is a nasty condition characterised by irrational anxieties about bins - and particularly bin collection. Imagine you’re in the middle of some humdrum housewifely activity, like watching your tears dissolve in the washing-up suds, when a question pops into your head. The first question might be mischievous, even playful, like “What happens if I forget to take out the bins?” or “What happens if I take out the wrong bins?” But then it all gets a little crazy, as in, “If I can’t entirely close the lid of the black wheelie bin (and the bin therefore represents a dire infringement of council health and safety guidelines), what is the maximum gap permissible between the lid of the bin and the body of the bin before the bin-men refuse to take the bin?” And “Will I get an orange c...

I’m not accustomed to awards. In my experience, awards were what you got if, instead of lying on your bed fantasising about Simon Le Bon and/or dreaming up spectacular ways of killing yourself to punish your parents, you practised your viola for five hours every night. But now it seems I’ve won the Liebster Blog Award, courtesy of award-winning mummy blogger Older Mum , and the rules say I have to blog about it! I don’t know what the fuck a Leibster Blog Award is, but who cares! I’ve not been this happy since my mother reassured me that although she didn’t like me, she still loved me. Gee mom, thanks. That means a lot.  I do realise, of course, that awards are just a shallow motivational device to get people hooked on Capitalism (cue deafening applause from parents who send their kids to Steiner schools), because if they weren’t, my extraordinary record of underachievement, dysfunction and just plain making a hash of things, would have been recognised earlier.  After all, I...