Saturday Brain Dump

Isn’t January massive, hairy bollocks?

I’ve mentioned this before, but I really do yearn for the ability to hibernate like a tortoise of yore. None of this modern nonsense of sticking me in a fridge. Pop me in a comfy box with some bedding, paint my name on my back, tie a note to my wrist giving me the basics for when I wake up feeling a bit groggy, and let me sleep until spring please.

I shall try to be fair before I start moaning.  The week has had some excellent bits and some terrific people in it. I re-started my water colour classes with my friend Kim and had a wonderful time flinging paint around. I ate a lot of panettone. I got Ella Rusbridger’s Midnight Chicken in hardback. These were all marvellous things. My mum had her second cataract op and can now see in stereo. Celebration is in order. I ate a Mr Whippy as big as my face.  I had the very rare (these days) pleasure of taking both my daughters out for lunch, and a real pleasure it was.  I saw my splendid friends Alex and Connor, who I simply do not see enough and it was wonderful to catch up with them, and realise I’m going to see Daniel Kitson with them next weekend as well.

Work wise I have sold some things, which I did not expect, because it is January and everyone is broke. I have almost finished the first draft of the spreadsheet of doom. Things could be worse.

On the other hand, my dishwasher is still dead. It is most definitely an ex dishwasher. A new one is being delivered next weekend. The children are horrified about how regularly washing up appears in the sink. I am particularly enraged by the fact that they will wash up their own pots, but carefully leave any others that happen to be in the sink. Not their problem. Had I done this when they were growing up they would probably be in care right now.

Jason thinks he has fixed the printer. I don’t like to say. I’d prefer to think it’s more like a work in progress.

We have discovered damp in Tilly’s room. You think we would have known about this before, but that is because very few people know Tilly’s living habits. She has not so much packed her belongs to move out as excavate. We found the damp under several layers of other things. It will need a builder to look at it.

On that front, she moved out on Thursday. Loads of her stuff is still here, and she has only moved ten minutes drive away. Nevertheless, I cried all the way home from taking her on a shopping trip on Thursday evening and leaving her at her house. I am happysad, which is one of those devilishly difficult emotions that are really confusing.

Tallulah had CAMHS for the first time in a month on Thursday. It was difficult. I’m not about to say any more about that, but Thursday was quite the day what with one thing and another.

On Friday, Tallulah was pulled out of class by a teacher who said that her skirt was too short. Tallulah said she would change it over the weekend. The teacher said that it was not good enough and that her skirt length could be ‘disturbing’ for male teachers. She was then stuck in a class room for 30 minutes, crying, and not allowed out until she agreed to wear trousers from the lost property box.  I am so angry on so many different levels about this, particularly given that she has been wearing this skirt at school since last September. I can’t decide if I’m more furious about the blatant sexism and double standards or the fact that given her CAMHS situation, which the school know about, this was possibly the worst way ever to resolve this.

On a positive note, Tallulah has dealt with this marvellously and is challenging the school herself over this and has asked me to step back unless she needs me.  This is amazing and I am so proud, and at the same time, I have nowhere to put my rage and want to go about smashing things with pokers and raging against the system. Instead I am writing some neat paragraphs about it here instead.

Let’s move on.

Clubbercise was not as grimy and Nineties club scene as I had hoped. In the back of my mind I suspected it might be this way. Basically it was aerobics with a better sound track and the lights turned down. I hired my glow sticks because I wasn’t sure about committing to the class and buying my own. Unlike the old days when you snapped them to get them to work, these had batteries and four settings that you operated with a button. Turns out that if, like me, you are constantly behind, can’t get your arms and legs to do different things and can’t tell left from right, you can always turn your glow sticks off in mid fling. I spent much of the hour in the dark, both literally and metaphorically. I may go again. It’s probably good for me. I do bloody hate exercise though.

And I am not going to like it the way you do it, unless the way you do it is to sit in an armchair with a biscuit. I would like to think I would like it the way you do it, but all evidence points to the absolute contrary. I’m looking at the evidence here. After all, I’m the kind of woman who makes spreadsheets now.

Cat taming has proved surprisingly exhausting, but more successful than I anticipated. Much like the printer I am dubious about committing to this and feel that it is very much a work in progress.  Having said that, we started the week with Derek intermittently agreeing to sit in the same room with the kittens as long as she could hiss like Fenella the Witch from Chorlton and The Wheelies (now there’s a niche Seventies reference for you). Today she has spent most of the day in the house with the kittens, and only boxed Ronnie P’s ears once, although her language is shockingly bad and she still hates them.  My blood pressure is through the roof, I burst into tears while making toast and I have a really twitchy eye, but all cats are currently alive and in proximity to each other. This is a victory, right? I feel I shall never take up being Chris Packham when I grow up. Animals are a massive pain in the hole.

I have finished reading Diary of a Drag Queen by Crystal Rasmussen. They are very good on gender politics and the queer experience and I learned a lot, not just about fisting. I’m still not sure how I felt about the book as a whole. Enjoyable doesn’t really cover it. It was, like many things I have experienced this week, probably very good for me, but has made me feel quite tired and a bit sad at times, not because they are queer I would point out, just because the experience seems like a never ending battle just to be allowed to exist and that’s shitty and unfair.

Reading has not happened much apart from that. I haven’t really had time, which is a bit sad in itself. I did watch the Victorian Arts and Craft house programme on iPlayer today which was fun. It has made me very grateful that I don’t have to block print my wall paper by hand or spend my day skinning rabbits, so I suppose I should be grateful that my problems really are 21st Century ones.