Karoons

The scariest half-birthday I've ever had (and possibly the only one I've ever been aware of)

Some kindly soul (namely Liam Theroux) has pointed out that today is my half-birthday. Being a man with a strange affinity for statistics he also pointed out that I am now 95% of the way through my twenties! Thanks for that. I now have officially begun a six month bout of hyperventilation that will last until April when I turn 30. 30! Thirty! THIRTY!!! Dear lord in heaven, mother nature, fate, karma, space alien, giant green lizard, or whoever the hell is in charge of the universe... MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right. So. Okay. I'm getting old.

I can cope with this. It is all fine. Fiiiiiiiiiiine.

Have you ever seen those lists that some people do? The ones usually entitled '30 things to do before I'm 30' or '30 things to do before my skin is the texture of a prune and my genitalia withers and dies and I also, co-incidentally, turn 30'?  Well, we all know I have no chance of getting 30 things done in the next 6 months unless those things include eating chocolate bars and buying shoes. What I should say is that I don't stand a chance of getting 30 things of note done.  But maybe I could start a few things. Not earth shattering things, but things that will feel like small new beginnings instead of a big, fat dead end with a zero on the end.

The senior triangle - AKA me and my 2 best friends - have a long standing tradition of The Todo. This is essentially a to do list for life. It's a list of ambitions, a list of what we what we want to achieve before we die. A list of the kind of things that's it's sometimes hard to make time for but that you know, when you're old and grey you'll look back on and be glad you did. Because who looks back and thinks "I'm bloody glad I spent that Saturday morning doing my ironing' or "thank god I put my all my bank statements from 2002-2008 in order'?

Well, the list that follows isn't up to Todo standards. I still have one of those, but it has bigger dreams on it. This a list of new starts and baby steps. I aim to achieve every one of them before April 12th and that's why they are not too ambitious.

1. Start driving lessons (again)
Might as well start with the big one. Truth be told this is scary for me. I first learned to drive at 17 and my Dad was my instructor. This was when he was he living in a half-way house for people with mental illness and being trapped in a car with him during those times was not fun. A lot of the one-way conversations that took place revolved around suicide or threats of violence or consisted of a general spewing of hatred. As soon as I contemplate getting behind a wheel I feel a bit sick and panicked but I think it is just some mind association game my brain is playing. Well, we'll soon see!

2. Bake and ice a cake
Surely one day I will become the housewife I aways dreamt I would be. Alright - I just want to be able to have 24 hour access to cake.

3. Go to a play
I used to go to the theatre regularly when I was a teenager. I saved up the wages from my Saturday job in a shoe shop and bought tickets for all sorts of things. And there you were thinking I spent my hard-earned cash on cool things like checked shirts, cider and Celtic tattoos. Nope I was a geek even then. Time to try it again I think.

4. Begin to learn an instrument
I'd love to play the guitar but I accept my limitations. Ukulele? Anyone got any advice?

5. Go swimming
I haven't been since the unfortunate flashing incident. Note to self: buy new swimming costume with re-enforced brassier before attempting this one. Can you get them with a zip up to the neck?

6. Invest in new underwear
Now that I have a real job that doesn't pay me in monopoly money I can justify having the underwear drawer of a grown-up instead of a skint student.

7. Investigate getting contact lenses
I used to hardly ever wear my glasses but now I need to see what is going on in the darkest recesses of my classroom at all times.

8. Keep a food diary
To find out what exactly it is that turns me into a leper. I will spare you the all details but at the moment I regularly end up with, amongst other things, a giant, swollen, purple head. I've been under doctors orders to do this for a while but if I put it on here I might actually get my finger out. And maybe, just maybe, I'll enter my thirties being able to eat in restaurants without risking total public humiliation.

9. Spend less time reading blogs; Spend more time reading books
My reading habits have got sloppy.

10. Speak to the people that mean the most to me at least once a week.
That's the senior triangle, my sister, my mum & Uncle Dude. Although Uncle Dude may find it strange if I start calling him every week. Liam Theroux I see all the time anyway.

Wish me luck!

I may add to this if the mood strikes but that will do for now.

The one funny thing to come out of a most shiteous week.

One morning this week a small boy burst into my classroom. He was beaming with pride and clutching a yellow envelope in his hot little hand. He was happy because he'd bought another child in the class a birthday card. He had gone to the corner shop, carefully selected one that he thought the boy would like, paid for it with his pocket money and written inside it without any help from anybody. 

As soon as I saw the even younger recipient tear it open I knew I had no choice but to "look after it for a while." In other words I confiscated it. I am not mean teacher lady, I had several good reasons.

1. I could in no way let it go home where parents might see it.
2. It perfectly sums up how I feel about this past week.
3. I knew it would sit perfectly on my bookshelf and would make me laugh every time I saw it. (I was right).

Why, why, why do they always sit next to me?

I am on the bus home after yet another 12 hour day at work. As usual I have my iPod in and am listening to a little bit of light jazz (not really - everyone knows I only ever listen to happy hardcore). At the next stop a man dressed in smart, black suit stumbles onto the bus and plonks himself down in the seat behind me. He immediately begins what I think is a very loud conversation on his phone. After a minute, I feel spittle on my neck and realise he is actually talking to me.

I consider ignoring him but the day before I had done that to 2 men who approached me outside a shopping centre. I felt quite smug at my ability to side step weirdos until I heard them, in faltering English, ask the next person for directions to the station. Cue several hours of guilt over my inhospitality and general bitchiness. In my defence, there is a much higher proportion of nutters than tourists in Hull. At least 100 000 : 1.

In an effort to counter my guilt I decide to find out what he wants.

"Sorry?" I say.

"Are you going to the party?" he replies. The smell of alcohol hits me the moment he opens his mouth.

"No" I say.

"Are you going to the party at Revolution?"

"No. I'm going home." Don't ask me why I offer the additional information. Maybe this is why I always get stuck talking to the strange ones.

"Do you want to come to the party?" he asks.

"No I'm going home."

"Oh you're too drunk."

"No. I'm going home."

He looks at the amount of bags I'm carrying. "Do you study literature?" he asks.

"No. I'm a teacher" I say. Please note how I am trying hard not to engage in conversation but still be polite? Also note how I am not very good at it.

"Oh. Do you teach literature?"

"No."

"I study literature" he proudly announces.

"Oh. At Hull Uni?"

Damn it! Why did I ask a question? This is no way to end the encounter. Those years spent as an English conversation teacher have given me the power of endless smalltalk. It is both a blessing and a curse.

"No at ...."  he replies. The name of the educational establishment he names leads me to think that maybe he has a learning difficulty as well as being drunk.

"I'm going to be an action film writer" he says. "I can feel it. I'm going to. I'll be dead good. It's going to happen in my future."

"Oh...right."

"I'm going to. Really. I'm a good writer. It's in my future. I study literature"

I remain silent.

"Have you seen that advert that is like The Sweeney?"

"No" I say and wonder how a man who looks about 5 years younger than me has heard of The Sweeney.

Upon hearing my reply he begins a loud re-enactment of some sort. He plays numerous roles and shouts a lot. I am suddenly aware of the rest of the passengers on the bus. They are sitting in total silence. After what seems like forever the performance comes to end. It culminates in him cocking his fingers like a gun and pointing them right at my face.

"Oh" I manage to muster. I try and catch the eye of the middle aged man sat across from me. He is listening but steadfastly avoids my gaze.

Before I know what is happening the drunk man is off again. This time there are at least 3 characters and a dead body.

I have never in my life been happier to see the lights of Hull bus station come into view.

"So are you coming to the party?" he asks.

"No" I reply.

He follows me off the bus muttering darkly about how everyone writes literature but only he writes action films.

"So are you coming to the party?" he tries again.

"No" I say firmly.

I walk off in the opposite direction to Revolution with a new determination to pay attention to statistics (even made up ones). Nutters to tourists 100 000 : 1.

A proposal

Hello. I am very boring. And also ill.

The sickness has travelled from my throat, to my nose and now to my chest and by the weekend I will probably be infected down to my toes. You'd think one lot of antibiotics would kill all of the germs in my body. Especially when each pill is the size and shape of nuclear submarine. But no, these are super, angry germs and I am officially registering my dislike of them.

There was some good news today, I was proposed to! By a 5 year old. But I told him I couldn't marry him until he learnt how to sit nicely during carpet time. He may never forgive me and I now I'm doomed to be a spinster forever. What have I done?

Have I ever mentioned ...

.... that Bruce Parry rocks my world?

I think I might have. About one hundred times. But just in case, may I point out how tough, brave, culturally sensitive, intelligent, passionate and in touch with his emotions he is.

Okay. Gush over.

Just one more thing. Humaduh humaduh!

Embarrassing moments of the week: Edition 546

1.

I have spent all morning trying to teach small people how to add numbers and how not to pick their noses. Now it is finally lunchtime and I am tired, hungry and in need of a sit down and some food. I walk into the staff room to see that almost every seat is taken with people eating healthy salads and home-made sandwiches - a sure sign that it is start of term. I sit down, set out the contents of my bag on the table in front of me, and explain how glad I am that I made my lunch the night before. Getting up before 7am has come as a bit of a shock to the system after 6 weeks of holiday, so I'm doing anything I can to snatch a few minutes extra in bed in the morning.

I pick up my sandwich, which I'd smugly wrapped in silver foil last night. I tear off the foil only to reveal one very large, distinctly unsandwich-like lump of mature cheddar cheese. The lump of cheddar that I had cut from to make the sandwich that is still sitting in my fridge.

2.

I am standing in one of the over-lit aisles of a 24 hour Tesco; a place so huge it should have its own postcode. I am peering at a shelf piled high with 2 for 1 shower gels, trying to decide between the purple jasmine and fig, the white chamomile and jojoba and the green ectoplasm simply labelled 'energise'. The importance of this decision cannot be under-estimated because it will determine how I smell for the next few weeks. I want to smell like a human, not an industrial chemical leak. The first two options sound nicer but in the mornings am I more in need of hearts and flowers or a short, sharp kick up the arse?

In order to make an informed decision I know what I have to do. Smell them all! I pick up the green one, flip open the lid and put my nose to the newly revealed hole. I sniff but get nothing. I smell only supermarket air. In my peripheral vision I see a brow-beaten Tesco employee stocking a shelf with toothpaste and contemplate that maybe sniffing products before buying them is not right and proper. Nevertheless, I am determined to know what I'm getting myself into before I commit my hard-earned cash. I begin to inhale deeply through my nose whilst simultaneously giving the bottle a little squeeze. You know, to help the smell out. Before I know it, the lower half of my face is covered in snot-coloured slime.

From the deep-heat style tingling around my chin area, I'm guessing that the 'energising' element of the shower gel is mint. I quickly put the green bottle back on the shelf and throw the purple and white bottles into my basket. As I walk pass the sniggering shelf-stacker I pretend that I am rubbing my chin in contemplation at the wonders of consumerism. She doesn't buy it.

The secret diary of Kay - AKA Bitchy McBitchface

Okay. So remember that post last week when I wrote about how I'd unearthed some teenage writings? Remember how I said they were far too embarrassing to share?

Well, I got to thinking that I don't humiliate myself in public enough anymore. I mean all I do is wear my clothes back to front, cry at inopportune moments, call the same person the wrong name 3 times in one night and break everything in sight. I'm sure everyone around me feels intimidated by my innate sophistication and so, in the interests of fair play, I thought I'd share some excerpts from my diary of 1997. That way you all will realise that once, a long time ago, I was a mere mortal just like you. Except meaner, more pathetic and painfully immature.

Before we go on may I remind you that this is from 1997. I was 17. Not 14

Wednesday 8th January 1997

Oh god! Mum decided to have a talk with me about lads again. She puts so much pressure on me to have boyfriends but I'm quite happy to go out and have a snog and a grope or whatever.

I've decided I won't go into heavy relationships. Not unless I happen to meet someone I really like - someone who makes my stomach flip - like Matthew Bailey. And there's no-one like that around here so what's the point. Oh god - maybe that was my only chance and I blew it. I've never that stomach flipping feeling before. Maybe that was it - love at first sight and I never seized the moment. Oh god - now I'm going to end up a withered bitter, old maid!

Firstly, " a snog and a grope or whatever"? Urrrrgh.  Secondly, over-react much? Matthew Bailey was a friend of a friend. I played pool with him the one and only time we ever met.


Thursday 9th January 2007

I had a Climbers meeting tonight and Kate didn't come because she was "revising". We have a history test tomorrow and she's swotting for it. God, I HATE  her!!!!!! I do the right thing sticking by the commitments I've made even though it's deadly boring and I'm going to  fail the test tomorrow. Kate will ace it as usual, get loads of praise while I get knackered. And SHE's the selfish one. I really do hate her now. She's a selfish, boring cow-whore and and not such a high achiever as she thought. And she's not going to get into Cambridge and I'm going to tell her so tomorrow!

Ooooo what a nasty little fucker I was. I'm pretty sure I had been given far more than one nights notice for the history test and Kate was quite nice really.

I must try and re-introduce cow-whore into my vocabulary.

 

Ding dong ....

...the witch is dead, the witch is dead, the wicked witch is deeeeeeeaaaaaad!

Not literally (thanks Ria for thinking I would go as far as to celebrate her death), but figuratively. And that's good enough for me

10 things I learnt in London this week

1.That Lauren is just the same at 29 as she was at 28. That is, her taste for outrageously slutty shoes remains in tact and she still knows how to ensure we all have a great time when we visit. Perhaps those two things are related and the Middle East peace process and all other awkward social gatherings could be improved by the wearing of 3 inch high, red, pointy shoes.

2.That the boys of Camden's indie clubs are really young. Boys is probably not the right word - they are more like embryos.

3.That the senior triangle is now old enough that birthday gifts of audio books are not only deemed appropriate, they are met with cries of glee.

4. That whatever people say, London is often friendlier than ooooop north. We got a night bus back home and the whole of the top deck joined in with an impromptu rendition of 'Hallelujah'. We don't have night buses in Hull but if we did, and you tried to start a sing-along on one, I can guarantee you'd be made to swallow your guitar whole and then stabbed to death with sharpened treble clefs.

5.That Taboo is a very funny game. Especially when played with slightly drunk people in a pub on a Sunday afternoon. Did you know that repeatedly screaming "my body is a temple" across the table is a sure fire way to get you friends to guess the word 'detox'? That's because it's not.

6.That a four year old never gets bored of playing hide and seek. Even when there are only 3 rooms to hide in.

7. That I, or more specifically my boobs, cannot comfortably fit under my sister's bed. On the plus side I may have invented a cheap alternative to breast reduction surgery.

8. Never agree to a makeover by a four year old even if it does stop the never ending game of hide and seek. I ended up wearing 3 different shades of lip-gloss ... in my hair.

9. That looking after a grumpy, tired baby in a public place is a little different to looking after a grumpy, tired baby at home. At home there are no evil people giving you death stares every time he whimpers. It's okay though. I got revenge by dipping his dirty wet wipes in their coffee when they weren't looking.

10.That falling asleep on the train is never a good idea. Especially if you tend to end up with your bum in the air and dribble down your chin.

Seth

Having just moved house I am still in the process of unpacking boxes and boxes of things that I probably should have thrown away years ago. Especially, since I have a tendency to up-sticks more than most people. (I just figured out that I have lived in eleven different houses so far this millennium - that's an average of 8.3 months in each place).

Anyway - complicated statistical analysis was not meant to be the point here. (Yes - I had to get my calculator out to figure out how many months there have been since January 2000). The point is I have spent years packing and unpacking and packing again a lot of stuff that should have seen the bottom of a bin a long time ago. This includes some of the hideously introspective, self-obsessed drivel that I wrote in my teens and early twenties. You may argue that this blog is merely more of the same. You're right. But trust me when I say I self-censor here far more than in my trusty notebooks of old and for that we can all be grateful. To the outside world I may present myself as a gibbering, incoherent 29 year old but inside my head I'm a gibbering, incoherent 14 year old. Small steps people, small steps.

I will spare you from the worst my notebooks have to offer. I am still far to embarrassed to share the real humdingers. I did find one poem that I quite liked. It rhymes  - something that I abhorred at the time but I remember I was trying to structure it like a song - verse, chorus verse. It's about a boy I met when I was travelling alone through Cambodia. Ah, the memories.

Here goes...

Seth

I took your picture by night rivers

As your grin lit up the sky

The very first hello of it

Tinged lilac with goodbye.

We spent a week in motion

On your battered motorbike

And in tumbled sheets and bedclothes

On balmy, sweaty nights.

 

I don’t mind admitting I left a piece of me with you

A carefree younger version, who always told the truth

The one who saw in black and white and red and purple too

When living for the moment was all I knew to do.

 

I let you drive me to the station

Down those dusty, dirt-filled tracks

With empty promises to call and write

And scratch marks down our backs

I sat on threadbare cushions

As I watched you through the glass

And thought how pure and primal things

Are never built to last.