Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Archie wote this...

... and it deserves its own spot here, not hidden in a comment box. Lovely.
Thank you Archie.
 

Just the boring half of me
lives in the real world
The part you see is not all
For I hide my other life

It is mine and includes
the love and fear and hope

You may share what
I choose to show yet
I will not share
The reality of my hidden life.


And Alicia Suskin Ostriker wrote this below. I love it too...

The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog

To be blessed
said the old woman
is to live and work
so hard
God's love
washes right through you
like milk through a cow
To be blessed
said the dark red tulip
is to knock their eyes out
with the slug of lust
implied by
your up-ended
skirt
To be blessed
said the dog
is to have a pinch
of God
inside you
and all the other dogs
can smell it

Alicia Suskin Ostriker

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

 Wall Poems

Too beautiful.
Justin Sullivan, he of New Model Army.



Batteries

My dad, is a genius. I love my dad. In our family, we call him Inspector Gadget. If you need anything fixing - car, washing machine, TV, my dad is your man. He is pissed off with his mp3 player. It is old, small, and fiddly, but it works, so will not be replaced. My dad likes to fall asleep listening to the radio - he has mild tinnitus, and he has discovered that listening to something masks it while he drifts off (It used to be audio books, but he got into a flap the next morning trying to scan back to the bits he fell asleep at, so now its 5Live or Talkradio). Mum doesn't really like this habit, she wakes up in the night to tinny tsktskshhshh noises, and has to unravel the headphone wires from around dad's neck (she says) while he lies there snoring, one earphone wedged inside a nostril. So, back to the batteries. The worst thing is, they last a night only. This enrages my dad, having to recharge or do without, so, he has rigged up this which is pictured below. One hopes he doesn't attempt jogging with it in his pocket. He came into the kitchen earlier, and saw me snapping away. If this appears on the interweb... he said, threateningly.

Heh. Sorry dad. I love you.








Bewildered Befuddled and Me.
 

I had a day off yesterday. This is unusual on a weekday, and I spent the entire week anticipating it with glee. Maybe a little shopping, some cake eating whilst blog browsing, some feet up, some settee based snooze.

But no.

Instead, I get a frantic call from my daughter to say that my father, has sat on a stanley knife and gone to hospital. In an ambulance.

SAT on it? I say.

Yes! She says. It won't stop bleeding, and I can't get hold of Gran, so I called an ambulance.

I have visions of a suddenly castration fixated elderly mother, surreptiously placing a stanley knife between two sofa cushions before skipping off into the distance, spotted hanky on a stick over her shoulder.

Seems that daughter has been taking notice of my laminated sheets of the heart and its functions, which I have pinned to the wall over the kettle in an attempt to assist my revision study. (I don't revise. I don't even revise my opinions, never mind the functions of the heart.)

I think it has penetrated his femoral artery! she says, confidently.

I marvel at this for a second, then call my sister to get her to drive to the hospital and see what has happened. I am panicking a little of course.

My sister phones ten minutes later to inform that she has seen our father, clutching his arse and standing folornly in A&E reception. "They've GLUED the bugger!" he shouts. Admirably, my sister doesn't walk briskly past as though she doesn't know him, she packages him into the car and drives home.

Mother calls later, and laughs about father. Oh the duffer! she says. He left a stanley blade on his car seat and then sat on it! I was out buying one of those new mobile phones with a big screen, she says.
She can't see the other one properly. A big screen phone. This makes my heart sink a little, as I know big screen phones will have too many functions. My mother is the type that should only hold a phone which has giant black handset and a twirly cord attached to it.

Even later she calls again, to tell me that the phone is far too quiet, and although she can SEE the numbers and letters, she can't hear it ring. So, she takes it off to Phones4u, and demands her money back. Its a dysfunctional phone, she says.

Imagine this, and I swear it is true.

The young man in Phones4u unwinds the cling film that my mother has wound around the upper part of the handset (which is where the speaker is) "to protect the screen" and hands it back to her. Try this madam, he says.

Dysfunctional phone? Dysfunctional family.

I was so looking forward to my day off. Now I am consumed with questions.

Which one of them do I disown first?

Friday, November 06, 2009

How People see us...


A post pops up on my facebook homepage. A friend has taken one of those silly interview quizzes that are so damned addictive.


It has made me feel so warm.



Aly S******

I answered ''Liana as my Mum cos she has the most amazing ability to make anyone feel safe and Simon N as my dad cos he's so damn funny when he's been on the scrumpy!!''
6 minutes ago via Social Interview · · · Interview Me

So, me, the one out of all my friends, who veers around all over the place? I make my friend feel like this?

I must be doing something right then. 


Amazing.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Jollies.

Such a day...

Got my new tattoo. HERE!





Yes, I love it. No, it's not the 'Hermit's Speech'. Back to google you go.

Tattoo and pic provided by The Mad Tatter. Thanks Beth...

In other news, Harriet McFlap, aka Bane of my Life, aka My Pillock of a Dog, seized the opportunity to eat a pound of best butter while I was at Beths being inked. I came home to find something resembling a large yellow party blancmange on the kitchen floor. Mostly butter, it contained bits of her daily banana treat, several chunks of dog biscuit and (inexplicably) a sponge eyeshadow applicator. No carrot though. It resisted all attempts from me to clear it up with kitchen roll, slithering round the kitchen tiles like an evasive and wobbly Dr. Who villain. I had to take my wounded wrist to the coal bunker and get the shovel to scoop it up in the end.

In other news - Wibs tells me that Callum shat himself in French today. She was doubled with giggles relating this. Oh! I said, How awful! Poor Callum! Not really, says Wibs. He was having a farting competition with James, and had managed 17 farts until that point. The eighteenth proved a squeeze too far. Mon Dieu! Or Mon Poo!, perhaps. Epic fail, as the kids say.

My life is so great.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Turning Back Time

Apologies for the lack of entries (if anyone cares). I've been slogging away at an essay which proved to be the most difficult thing I have written in many a year. It appears that after an extended holiday, I returned to find that my academic ability now resembles that of a five year old Patagonian child. Who has sesquipedalophobia. Not great in academic, medical essays. So, for the last three weeks I have been onto it. Or, supposedly onto it, but avoiding it like mad. By cleaning the house top to bottom, writing letters of complaint to Kellogs (don't ask), sorting a winter wardrobe, playing bejewelled, walking the now pawsore dog,  browsing book and junk shops and sleeping. I even decorated a room. There's avoidance. I have distanced myself from friends, failed to pay bills. answer the phone, open MSword.
Yesterday was the deadline, and by ten pm Sunday, it was done. Dreadful, dreadful essay. I am embarrassed by it, and console myself with the fact that it's worth little in the credit accumulation. Bleurgh.

Caz, I'm onto that mail, with pictures.
Hants, I'm onto you too.