Cuddle

Me and Moo have this thing now, yeah. She started it. It was her idea. When I’m getting her ready for bed – pyjama’d, sleeping bagged, and In The fucking Night Gardened – she looks me straight in the eye and says, ‘Now we have a lovely cuddle’.

And it’s true, we do. We sit on the chair in her room and have a lovely cuddle.

Like I said, she started it. OBVS I would cuddle her anyway, and we’d maybe have a tickly smooch, or a giggly hug, but this – THIS – is a lovely cuddle. It’s our lovely cuddle. I lean back on the chair and she lies on her front and tucks her head under my chin, throws her arms round mine and occasionally, very occasionally, licks my neck. Yeah. A lovely cuddle.

I’m ALL about the cuddles. I’m a very tactile lady person. If I deem you awesome enough for my clammy grasp, you’ll get major huggage from me. It may take a while to suss you out so don’t be miffed if I’ve not cuddled you yet. I will. I have cuddly designs on lots of you. Lots of uber-cuddle. Mondo hugfest. Totes cuddlations, innit. I’m making words up now. But I reckon you get it. Me cuddle you = all’s well.

But a lovely cuddle from my baby Moo, THAT’S special. And she started it. It was HER idea. She says, ‘Now we have a lovely cuddle’, before she goes to sleep. And we do.

Can’t get enough cuddling, in my humble opinion. I’ve been fortunate enough to be in relationships with menfolk who Do the Cuddles. A man who withholds armclasp-loving is not the fella for me. You gotta HUG me. I wanna be HUGGED. I want to know that with that gesture, you love me, want to comfort me, support me, have affection for me, will protect me, keep me warm, keep me safe, and will, like, wrestle fuckin’ LIONBEARS for me, y’know? THAT’S hugging. That’s cuddles. Friendship cuddles are the same. Family cuddles. Virtual HUGZ with online pals, too. Love hugs. Love cuddles. And make it a good grip, as well. None of this limp grip, no way. You put your arms round me, you’d better make me worry for my ribcage. Understood? I like to be HUGGED. Dare you to do it properly. I’m telling you. Hug me good, you bastards.

With Moo, though. Our lovely cuddle. That’s a soft one. Gentle, like. She’s tired, fractious. I’m most likely eager for her to be abed and sleeping, it’s been a long day, y’know. Yet she looks at me and says, ‘Now we have a lovely cuddle’. And we do. I hold her to me and smell the shampoo on her hair and feel her eyelids flick against my chest and wince a bit when she digs her elbows in my sides and listen to her breathing calm beneath my hands and stroke her back and tell her I love her more than anything and this is our lovely cuddle, and this is when I know for sure that out of everything in this whole damn world, our lovely cuddles make all the shit stuff totally worth it.

Cuddles. Do you get enough?

Guilt

Parenting. Such a MAGICAL experience. Along with all the fear, desperation, exhaustion, irritation, frustration and total absolute dicking bollocks of parenting, comes guilt. GUILT. I feel it ALL THE COCKING TIME. I can’t escape it. I’m afraid to say, people, that when you spawn a tiny person you instantly and violently sign up for a LIFETIME of this emotional headfucking stuff. It’s overwhelming, and gives me heartburn. Yeesh.

I feel guilty…

that I don’t do enough ‘educational’ stuff with Moo

that I don’t spend enough time outdoors with Moo

that I let her watch too much TV

that I spend too much time on Twitter while she watches TV

that I don’t feed her enough food

that she eats too much junk food

that she doesn’t socialise with other children enough

that I don’t socialise with other parents enough

that sometimes I just want a break from the parenting stuff

that I should be looking for work even though it wouldn’t mean I was any better off right now

that I should be writing a novel/a screenplay/a play instead of blogging

that I should eat more healthily

that I should be a better sister/daughter/friend

that all this internal gibbering makes me a bad mother

that I’m not more proactive about a LOT of things

that I shout at Moo when I really don’t mean to

that sometimes I only really want some time on my own

that I’ve just spent fifteen quid in the supermarket on crap when I could budget properly and save cash

that I resent a lot of people who have what I don’t have even though I know that’s a horrid thing to do

that I know it could be a lot worse for me and I hate moaning

that I feel guilty about most of this stuff when I should just QUIT IT, FUCKSAKE –  and man up…

 

You see? It’s a convoluted nightmare of epic proportions. And I’m only being a tiny bit dramatic there. Which I feel guilty about. Obvs.

What do you feel guilty about?

Sucks

Moo sucks. Quite literally. Remember when I wrote this post? About her addiction to dummies? Yeah? Well, surprise sur-fucking-prise, time goes forward inexorably and all that, and it’s getting to the stage where Moo sucking on a dummy now is just a little bit, well, erm, how can I say this politely… a bit FUCKING WRONG. It sucks. She’s two and a half. She sucks. She’s got to stop.

Today I bought two new dummies. This does not aid the whole ‘stopping sucking’ thing, I agree. But her previous dummies were kind of grey. And droopy. One of them had a hair caught round it, and fluff caught in the hair, and tiny spiders caught in the fluff (I’m guessing). It’s gross. She loves it. She sucks on those bastards like a bastard. It’s scary how much she loves it. She goes all giggly and far-eyed when she sucks on those things. Like I do when I’m inhaling cheese. Addicted, fucksake. So I tried cleaning the old ones but they were still grey, and droopy. So I bought new ones. Because when I broached the subject of maybe taking the dummies away and Moo going to bed without them now, I got what I like to think of as A Top Level Death Stare.

‘Moo, you don’t need dummies any more.’

Death Stare.

‘Moo, let’s put the dummies away and see how you get on.’

DEATH STARE.

‘Moo – please don’t kill me, but – soon you’ll have to get rid of your dummies, because it’s gross now, OK?’

DEEEEEEEEATH STARE OF DEATH AND DOOM.

She’s two and a half, and still uses a dummy to settle herself at night. In my head, I’ve given her till she’s three to drop it. Realistically, it has to be sooner, because otherwise, I’ll wimp out and she’ll still be using them when she’s 26. I’m not generally a wimp in my parenting tactics. But, you see, I like that Moo sleeps at night. She’s GREAT at it. Aside from a few wobbles in the past, she’s in bed by 7 and FREQUENTLY does not wake till 8 the next morning. THAT IS UBER SLEEPING SKILLZ, bruv. I don’t want to jinx that. I don’t want to RUIN what is a perfectly awesome sleeping advantage for me. I have a direful notion that if I remove the dummies, it’s all going to go tits up. Or teats up. See what I did there. Har.

When she had The Pox recently, I indulged her. She was poorly and needed comfort. So the dummies came out during the day. This is not the usual routine. Dummies are for bye-byes. Apart from when struck down with Pox, obvs. Unfortunately, Moo now thinks she’s entitled to the dummies AT WHATEVER POINT OF THE DAY SHE SO DESIRES THEM. Man alive. And now she’s, like, a proper tiny person, she’ll just fetch them herself from upstairs and look totally aghast and calls her lawyer to report a breach of her basic human rights if I take them off her.

I know, I know. I’VE CREATED A MONSTER. In the post I’ve linked to above, I’m all ‘Yeah look at me not giving a shit about my baby having a dummy, I’ll just take it off her when she’s older, piece of piss bruv, bring it on, woop woop’ and now I’ve reached that point, I’m fucking bricking it. Moo is obstinate, defiant and bloody stubborn (no idea where she gets that from, ahem) so the thought of BATTLING her on this TERRIFIES me.

HEEEELP. People who have wrestled dummies from their children’s puckered mouths, HOW? Or am I fretting too soon about this stuff, and should just wait till she’s older and can be reasoned with (bribed)?

DO I JUST BURN ALL THE DUMMIES?

The Gallery – Self Portrait

I’m such a farking narcissist I couldn’t resist joining in The Gallery with this theme.

But lest you think I do ACTUALLY love myself , I really do not. I just wanted to show off the new Snapseed photo editing app I have on my phone. It is great and awesome. Lots of retro/grubby/dramatic filters and frames, and nice blurring tools. So. You can totally mess with your face. Which is fun.

I took a shot of myself and had a play. This is what happened:

photo (1)

I like to think I am GLOWING with some sort of supernatural evanescence. Spooky me.

I also like that my features have been almost obliterated by the filter. You can’t see what my mouth is doing. Am I smiling? Am I poking out my tongue? Am I mouthing something obscene? (probably)

If you would like to join in with The Gallery, or view the other entries, then please click the link below and spread the warm blog loving. Cheerio.

 TheGallery

Poem

Love

I am the skin, the cloak, the hood, the claw
I am the part of your heart you don’t care for any more

I am the ache of your teeth when something’s too sweet
I am the scratch on your back that bleeds with heat

I am sorry, I am guilty, I can’t be consoled
I am foreign and frightening, I am too hard to hold

I am the pieces of paper in the pit of your pocket
I am the texts and emails kept tight in your locket

I am the shriek in your face when I can’t get it right
I am the total disaster in a sleepless night

I am giving, forever, and warming, and true
I am all you need, I am everything, I am there in you

I am not your fault and I am not your friend
I am more than you can take, and beginning to end

I am the lies you tell yourself when you find me elsewhere
I am unbidden and wanted, I am the room to spare

I am every sad song you ever heard ever
I am every bad choice you ever make never

I am the howl in your chest and the blood in your soul
I am the teeth and the grit and the choke and the hole
I am the pain in the words and the last goodbye
I am the cold coffee on the platform
I am a forgotten voice

I am passive-aggressive subtext
I am nothing

Books

OK OK don’t think too hard about this, just read the question, then answer – HONESTLY, mind – you’re fooling no one – we can all read your mind – or maybe only I can – I dunno – are you thinking about ham sandwiches? – with mustard? – no? – then who the fuck? – dammit, hungry now – OK ANYWAY – here’s the question, ready, set, here we go:

Books or sex?

GO!

*waits*

Ooh, INTERESTING. Yeah, it’s books, innit. No one’s ACTUALLY picked sex. You’ve all picked books. Cos books are GREAT. Some of you have been sneaky – yes, you, you minx – and picked both. OK fair enough. To be fair, sex is pretty awesome too. But BOOKS. Love books. Love reading. Love reading books. I also love sex. Sex on books? OH HELLO.

Sorry, sidetracked. Yeah, so books. I am reading an epic piece atm. And last night, this book I’m reading basically ripped open my chest, chewed up my heart, and spat it out onto my duvet, and then just blithely carried on with the next chapter, chortling quietly to itself. Bastard. I am, of course, talking about Game of Thrones, the tits and sword fighting and blood and emotional warfare fantasy series by George R R Martin, or as I now call him, The Bastard Author Bastard Heart-breaking Bastard Writer Person. Also, he’s a genius, and I adore him.

Game of Thrones is huge. There are pages and pages of the stuff. And he still hasn’t finished writing it – I gather from a reliable source (ie someone on Twitter) that it’s been SIX LONG YEARS since the last book and he has legions of fans waiting for the next – and final – instalment. Of course, there is also the TV series, which has just started the third season on Sky. Watch it, it’s great, my next husband is in it, no he’s not too young for me, shut your face, he’s mine he’s mine. So, legions and echelons of fans. And now I’m one of them.

I love a book you can immerse yourself in, and I love an author that takes risks. Only last night, as I’ve mentioned, GRRM messed with my brain. I can’t do any spoilers  - I’d be hunted down and maimed – but what I can reveal is that SOME OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS WERE JUST KILLED TO DEATH, JUST LIKE THAT, JUST DEADED COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY AND NOW I’M SAD.

I am such a loser. I know it’s fiction. But I was genuinely upset. I had to stop reading, and place my Kindle very carefully out of reach (or I might have thrown it at the wall in grief)  while I took a moment to process what I’d just read.

GUTTED.

(I was, not the characters, although… no, no spoilers, dammit)

It’s devastating. I knew the books were the kind of books where no one’s safe, not the good guys, the bad guys, the good/bad/good guys, the mediocre guys, or anyone, really. I knew this, already. And I ALLOWED myself to become attached to them. Like a silly romantic fool. I rooted for the them. I empathised. I – yeah, I’ll say it – I loved them. And now they’re dead. AAARGH. I am literally too sad to continue reading right now. Mostly cos someone else on Twitter said it gets worse. For EVERYONE. Like, my other favourite characters. SOB.

Sometimes, I wish I was made of stone. I wish I didn’t feel so much. It can be a weighty burden. All day, I’ve been happily doing Normal Stuff, when I’d remember, and my smile would slip, and it’d all wash over me again, like a veil of tears.

Jeez, I need to get a life.

Anyway, I had to blog about it. I need to know I’m not the only complete sap. What was the last book you read that totally broke your soul?

 

And actually, thinking about sex on books – it’s just, paper cuts – I can’t – I’m a wuss. I’ll stick to reading them.

 

Middle

OK, so, like, I have a thing where I have to sleep on the right side of the bed.

Always. I always sleep on the right. It’s MY side. You want to sleep with me? You’re on the LEFT, boyo. Or womano, I ain’t fussy.

There’s a reason for this. It’s a bit weird. Bear with me.

Generally, I like to sleep on the side nearest the door. When I lived in Portsmouth with my ex, in our first proper grown-up house, with our first proper real grown-up bed, I slept on the right, nearest the door. This was in case a murderer came in to our room in the middle of the night and tried to murderise us. I figured that, if I was nearer the door, I could, like, quickly wake up and deftly dodge round him and escape, while he murderised my husband. I know. I’m ALL HEART.

There are flaws to this plan. It’s been pointed out to me many a time. It’s obvious to some that me being nearer the door could, potentially, mean that I get murderised first? Whatevs. I know what I’m doing when it comes to murderers*. So I staked my claim on the right side of the bed. And it’s always been that way. The right side is MINE. The few times I’ve tried to sleep on the left, it’s been WEIRD and HASN’T WORKED. The left side is for losers. YEAH.

Until the other night when I realised I was sleeping in a double bed, all by myself, and I still slept on the right side. Just one side. Of a big old double bed. Half the bed was empty. Has been for a while. Huh.

So I slept in the middle.

Now I sleep in the middle. I’m still kind of near the door. And also nearer the window. But I’m in the middle of a double bed, by myself.

I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a sad post, or not.

Do you sleep on the right, or the left? Does it matter to you?

 

*Disclaimer: haven’t a fucking clue

Marketing

Marketing! Here’s a tip: it does NOT mean hanging around markets. No siree. DON’T make the same mistake I did. Markets are harsh, inhospitable places, where desperate marketeers lurk, and try to sell you knickers for a pound. It’s TRUE. Or am I thinking of gulags? ANYWAY. Marketing: NOT ABOUT GOING TO A MARKET. You’re WELCOME.

The marketing of which I speak is to do with making something/someone attractive to potential customers, and that’s a really very over-simplified way of putting it, but, you see, I’m not an expert, and I should think that was obvious just from my opening paragraph. The reason marketing is on my mind at the moment is that as a writer, and a self-published one at that, I SHOULD be able to market myself more effectively. I should be fucking AWESOME at it. I’d be selling MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of books by now if I was. I’d be flicking Vs at J K Rowling and shitting all over her profit margins if I could switch on the part of my brain that governed the marketing skillz gland, or whatever it is you need to be good at marketing. It is genetic, right? It’s much more convenient for me if it’s a genetic default that means I’m shit at marketing and not just my sheer ineptitude.

I am shit at marketing. The product is me and my writing. I am shit at promoting me and my writing. I am AMAZED when I get anything done, cos, quite frankly, I am sitting here waiting for it to all fall into my lap. I should be OUT THERE*, pimping myself to bookish people who might just give me the break I need which means I can make a living from this stuff.

Here is an example of how shit at marketing I am: I recently submitted a script to the BBC Writer’s Room. I had to fill in a form. There was a section on the form urging me to share any interesting and relevant information about myself. I left it blank. I’M AN IDIOT. I left it BLANK. My exact thought process was, ‘I have nothing interesting or relevant about myself to add here’. I AM A TOTAL WASTE OF BRAIN. Only now, DAYS later, do I know I could’ve mentioned my books, my MA in Creative Writing, my blog, my Twitter profile, ANYTHING in fact, that would give the BBC Writer’s Room readers an insight into me as a person, and as a marketable resource. Leaving it blank says fuck all. Or, indeed, it says I’M A TWAT.

Is it actually a part of my brain that instantly discredits my own capabilities and therefore sabotages any notion of myself as a worthwhile commodity that makes me do such stupid twatty stuff? I dunno. I can’t get over the fact that, at some level, I NEED to promote myself in some way – other than larking about on social media sites, which, to be fair, is somewhat successful, and better than doing nowt – and I can feel that familiar creeping worm of self-doubt burrowing into my ear and hissing, ‘Yeah but you don’t have a clue, mate. You can’t market yourself cos a) you’re crap and b) you haven’t got the marketing skillz gland and c) you’re crap. Go hide under a rock’. Bastard self-doubt. I’m sure I can’t be the only one who sees writers/bloggers on Twitter or wherever with their shiny self-promotional tweets and wonder how just HOW do they do it? How do they KNOW this stuff? And if they know THAT, what ELSE do they know? I don’t know where to start. I don’t have a clue. I write, I publish, I write a bit more, I publish again, I wait for it to all fall into my lap. Like a twat.

So. Marketing. It takes time, and effort, and patience, and surely, skillz. It means making myself just a bit more visible to the right people. It also means not assuming everything I’ve ever done is shit and pointless and vacuous and arse. Right?

How do you market yourself as a writer/blogger? Is it something you spend a lot of time on?

 

 

*if anyone can tell me where ‘out there’ is located, I’d be eternally grateful

 

Instinct

So, Eastenders, what a load of lovable tripe you are, eh? A joyous romp through all the darkness a world can provide, and I’m not just talking about Ian and Denise getting it on. Eeeewwwwww, to the power of infinity. C’mon, Denise. Ian Beale. Seriously. IAN BEALE. Just, no. ANYWAY. Funnily enough, all the stabbings, wailings, explosions, incest, murders, adultery, abandonment, and erm, the extortionate price of a knickerbocker glory in the caff, gets me PROPER DOWN, and I stop watching for a bit, until something major happens, and then I get sucked back in, cos I want to know who shot/stabbed/buggered/defenestrated Phil Mitchell. As ANYONE would. Natch.

Regular viewers will be aware of the current storyline involving Lola, the ‘scrappy smart-mouthed teen with too much eye make-up’, and her baby, ‘the cute baby’. If you’re NOT aware, here is a quick precis: the baby was taken off Lola by social services cos she’s a teenager, and therefore a crap mother, and placed in the care of Phil Mitchell, WHO IS A THUG AND A CRIMINAL AND A FORMER DRUG ADDICT AND LOOKS LIKE A BIG RED ANGRY THUMB, and therefore OBVIOUSLY better suited to caring for a baby. Nonsense. Utter nonsense. Nevertheless, ANYTHING involving small babies in peril makes me hysterically weepy, so I’ve been soppily sniffing in front of the TV four nights a week for gawd knows how long as Lola battles to be reunited with her daughter. YES I KNOW. I am a dumbass. Bite me.

Then last night, a Massive Plot Device happened, and so flaringly obvious it was that it might as well have come with a klaxon and a formal announcement by the BBC that ‘Look here, one of them important Massive Plot Devices is about to happen, pay attention now, you plebs’ before glibly carrying on with the programme. Basically, the baby was HOT and ILL and NO ONE knew what to do, apart from Lola, who spent a bit of time explaining to her hapless male relatives that ‘I’m ‘er muvver, I just KNOW sommat’s WRONG wiv ‘er!’ before calling NHS Direct and getting a response within 30 seconds, which is so far removed from real life it makes the rest of Eastenders look like a hard-hitting documentary. The baby was rushed to hospital while the entire population of the Square looked on, and then there was a party at the B&B but that’s a different plot and not as GOOD.

The baby was fine, btw. Gastroenteritis. But fine. Phew. You can stop fretting now.

The moral of the Massive Plot Device is, that Lola is a MUVVER and just KNOWS when something is seriously wrong with her child, unlike Phil, who is not the baby’s muvver, and spent most of the episode saying ‘she’s only a bit hot innit’. Lola has a parenting instinct and she’s not afraid to use it, which is handy as I’m pretty sure social services will now grandly rethink their previous decisions and hand the baby back to Lola with a quick flick of the Vs to Phil. Plot device DONE.

My point is (if you’re still reading, WELL DONE and THANK YOU) that there’s a lot to be said for instinct. After all, our ancient cave-dwelling ancestors relied on it a lot, and it served them well, seeing as they evolved into medieval people, and then, erm, Victorian people (history not my strong point. Nor evolution). Sometimes everything else gets in the way, and we end up struggling between what our heads and hearts are clamouring to inform us, when really, we need to listen to our gut, which has been right all along, typically.

Lola’s Massive Plot Device (which would be an AWESOME band name) got me thinking about how I’ve ignored my instinct lately. How I’ve let Other Things get in the way. How, when I’m typically an instinctive person, I’ve been dismissing it and letting Bastard Circumstance rule my decisions. At the risk of sounding WAY MORE CRYPTIC than I want to, I’m therefore going to give Instinct another go. And trust it.

My instinct right now is telling me I shouldn’t write about Eastenders ever again. Huh.

How much do you rely on instinct? Is it merely a tool in our parenting arsenal? Or is it essential in all walks of life?

And Ian and Denise, that’s just wrong, yeah? He is totes punching above his weight. Totes.

Sadness

Funny how there’s no limit to a sadness. How you can be smiling, and calm, and about your day like no one’s business, when all of a sudden, there’s your sadness, sitting in your neck like a nausea. This, my sadness, makes me feel somehow more than completely sad. A way of life. An enveloping fog. Like I’m being cuddled by a vapour which pricks my eyes. Will I ever not be sad? I don’t know. Too many sad things have happened lately, I suspect I’m primed for sadness now.

Anger thrusts and then dissipates. Jealousy itches, and is soothed away. Anxiety comes and goes, blue and heady. Denial sneaks a cheeky grin your way. Frustration prickles. Bravado barks the loudest, oh, it covers up a multitude of less forceful feelings, but it has no stamina, no sticking power. I admit, that public bluster is fun, I do it cos leaves me pink-cheeked and rocking with laughter, but too soon, it’s away.

Faithful sadness. Curled up on my chest, its tail around my throat.

No limit to a sadness.