Don't Call Me "Baby"

A few recent (very grown-up) conversations and blog-readings have caused me to ponder the issue of my own biological imperative, or lack thereof. I've been wondering about the whole thorny Children Issue and have come up with a handy questionnaire to determine if I do want children and if I'm ready for them. Try it yourself!

QUESTIONS

1. When you see a baby, do you:
a) Coo over it/its picture, filled with feelings of love and warmth;
b) Admire it/its picture politely, but feel only a small measure of warmth;
c) Feel nothing;
d) Become aroused.

2. You're with a friend/relative and their baby. The baby soils its nappy - do you:
a) Immediately begin helping change the baby with little or no cringing;
b) Feel some revulsion, but offer to help;
c) Get the hell away - it stinks;
d) Become aroused.

3. What do you think a baby should be fed on?
a) Ideally breast milk, weaned onto formula/baby food or totally fed by formula if breast milk is not a possibility;
b) Umm, some kind of powdered milk;
c) Chips;
d) A different bodily fluid...

4. When you hear a baby cry, do you:
a) Want to help soothe it any way you can, whilst feeling waves of total sympathy for its suffering;
b) Want to help soothe it to shut it up;
c) Get away from that racket;
d) Become aroused.

5. Where do you think a baby should sleep?
a) In its own crib/cot in your room, so you can immediately tend to it should it wake in the night; b) In its own room, with a baby monitor;
c) In a different house;
d) In your bed.

6. When a baby starts laughing, do you:
a) Start laughing and smiling too, thrilled at sharing this experience;
b) Smile vaguely, wondering if you're the butt of some kind of baby-joke;
c) Cringe away from that hateful racket;
d) Become aroused.

7. Where do babies come from?
a) Well, when a mummy and a daddy (or mummy and mummy/daddy and daddy and doctor...) love each other very much...;
b) Sex, a fertility clinic or adoption centre;
c) ...The pound?;
d) Snatched from playgrounds.

8. You're asked to babysit a friend's/relative's infant. Do you:
a) Leap at the chance! You've already got your own changing mat, cot, baby toys, formula...;
b) Consider the idea, but it really depends on how long for, if you've already got plans, and if there will be any one else around to help you;
c) Laugh for about twenty minutes;
d) Become aroused.

9. You find a child alone in the street. Do you:
a) Comfort it, take it by the hand to try and find its parents, then head to the nearest police station if the child doesn't know where they might be;
b) Search around for anyone else who can help, whilst also trying to help the child spot its parents;
c) Just leave it. Those things spread disease;
d) Become aroused.

10. While caring for a baby, do you:
a) Rigidly follow the instructions its parents left you with, to ensure you give consistent care and don't undermine any routines they're trying to establish;
b) Follow advice left you, whilst turning to whoever else is helping you and also being willing to do anything [non-harmful] to shut the baby up should it start crying;
c) Leave it in the house whilst you head out to a movie - how much trouble can it get into in three hours, right?;
d) Become aroused.

ANSWERS

Mostly As
You are perfect parent material! In fact, you're probably a little baby-crazy and desperate for a sprog of your own. I suggest you find a mate or willing donor and start breeding fast!

Mostly Bs
Uncertain of your potential parenthood. Try spending time with the babies and/or children of friends and relatives, see if they grow on you and see how well you cope as a care-giver.

Mostly Cs
Parenting isn't your thing; why not get a fish? Or a Nintendog. Something that, if and when you kill it, Social Services won't care.

Mostly Ds
The police have been informed. Your name is being added to a register as you read this.

Room 101

I'd say you wouldn't like me when I'm angry, but to be perfectly honest I am angry a significant portion of the day and as such clearly you either do like me when I'm angry, or we're not actually friends. Realising that recent happy-happy-joy-joy posts may give you, the reader, an unbalanced perspective on my nature, I'm bowing to popular pressure (okay, one person's pressure) and my own desires and listing the things that I would banish to Room 101, or would strike from the very face of the earth if I had the power to do so. And, god willing, one day I will. Ideally, one day I will be the God, but I try to keep my aims reasonable. Queen of the World will suffice.

Anyhoo, this is just the list of things I (currently) have no power to change. I do get angry at proper serious issues, too: I read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and became pretty incandescent with rage; and I'm currently reading In Stitches by Dr Nick Edwards and it makes me want to march all the way to the Houses of Parliament and stand outside screaming, "You idiots, you fucking idiots, why can't you listen to NHS staff for a change?!". But these are things we all have (some) ability to change; we can write to our MPs, sign or create petitions, join protests, set up angry sciency blogs - we can make a difference, although it might be a small one and take ages to impliment any real change. But still. The things listed below, however, are things that, lacking the power to affect, enrage me all the more.

• People getting in my way. This follows on from people who stop in doorways, and for the same essential reason. I have somewhere to be, places to see, people to do, and I want to be able to get there. I do not want some idiot cluttering up the pavement and slowing me down. I hate it when people stop in doorways, or at the top of escalators/stairs, or when they are trundling along the street at about one mile per year and also managing to take up the whole damned pavement so I can't even get past them. Hate it hate it hate it. Even when I was hobbling along on crutches with a broken ankle I was faster than the average Cardiff resident (and smarter than the av-er-age bear) and I feel the Facebook group I Secretly Want to Punch Slow-Walking People In the Back of the Head is my spiritual home. This hatred also applies to people who're serving very slowly at tills - I don't want to be in the queue for the rest of my natural life, thanks, so picking up the pace would really help me out.
  
• People that inexplicably go to empty counters/tills. I saw this all the time back when I worked in a department store, and I see it now when shopping. There's a till with a person stood behind it in plain sight, not that far away, and yet some people will still meander blindly over to a counter where there are no people serving. This drives me crazy - why do they do it?! It's like when I'm stood waiting for an elevator and people come up, stand beside me, then push the button to call the elevator, like I'm some kind of moron who hadn't figured this out already. I may one day snap and thank them profusely for saving me from a potentially eternal wait for an elevator I didn't know how to summon.


• Not getting my own way. I know this is infantile, I know it's (usually) very unreasonable, I know it's unfair - and I just don't care. If that God/Queen of World thing ever comes to pass, so help the rest of you because I will have the world revolving around me. And I'll probably become dissatisfied with that and end it all in a fiery apocalypse.
  
• People who don't have their purse/wallet/bus pass ready when they get to the check-out/onto the bus. What, are you surprised they want money to finalise this transaction? Were you not expecting the driver to ask for your pass or payment? My rage is exacerbated a thousandfold if the person in question spends ten minutes digging through their bag/pockets to find their money, then starts counting out change...
  
• Strangers getting in my personal space. Now, I recognise that at a concert or the like, they're hundreds if not thousands of people around and I will get bumped into and I accept this. But when strangers sit next to me on the bus or train, I don't want any part of them to touch any part of me. It makes me massively uncomfortable, as well as pissing me off. I've usually gone to extreme lengths to press myself as far away from them as possible - and there are some people in this world who then shift even closer to me to take up the space I just made. I want to push them away and start screaming, right in their faces. This also applies when people get too close to me in a queue - I edge forward so I don't have a stranger standing a really uncomfortably familiar distance from me, and they step forward. One day soon I will loose it, turn around and yell at them to just back the fuck away from me. I also get uncomfortable if strangers deliberately touch me: for example, if they pat my hand or arm. This usually happens with older, mostly female, borrowers at the library. I know they're just being friendly and nice, but I really don't like it and you'd think my pulling away from them would clue them in about this - but it doesn't. If I don't socialise with you, that means I don't want you in my personal space. Back off, buddy.
  
• Losing. Sort of goes hand-in-hand with the getting my own way thing. I really, really hate to lose, to the extent that if I know I'm beaten before I begin, then I won't even play. And if I play and lose I want to tantrum. Like full-on, throw myself to the ground screaming and kicking my feet tantrum. I try and rein this in a little and usually end up just stropping off or sulking instead...
  
• Repetitive noise. Ticking clocks, people who say or sing the same line over and over, dripping taps, car/house alarms - you get the picture. Within a very short period, the beating of the hideous heart becomes all I can hear, all I can focus on, until I want to just smash to pieces whatever is making the noise. Worst case offenders: back when I lived at my Mum's, her neighbour would leave his house at around 6am. He would start his motorbike ... then go back inside the house and put on his leathers. Leaving the engine running on the drive. All I dreamt of was kicking his bike over then smashing it up with a baseball bat. It drove me crazy. Then there was the woman who got on the bus and starting playing a massively irritating garage song on her mobile. When the song finished, she played it again. And then a third time. And then she started it up for a fourth time and I was actually getting up out of my seat to tell her to stop when, luckily for both of us, she got off the bus.
  
• Valentine's Day.
  
• Superman.

There's more that could go on this list - lots more. But these are the things I think it acceptable to tell the world about...

In Which Reality Folds In On Itself

I was at the cinema last Wednesday night, and read the following piece of graffiti:-

"I cryed at the last act of Be Kind Rewind".

And I cried for the future. She had the right idea, clearly -- but ultimately it's a case of close, but no cigar. I think this literary genius was surpassed by some teenage girls in work, though, who used the word "swored" in my hearing. I found myself not-quite-muttering, "It's 'swear' or 'swore'." They heard me (or could sense my seething rage at their open abuse, nay, assault, of the English language, I'm not sure which) and so questioned what I meant.

I explained that "swored" is not a word, and even if you were to attach the past-participle "ed" to the end of the word, then in this case it would be "sweared" anyway. They argued, refused to believe me, so I directed them to a dictionary. Naturally they had no idea where they were, which I can understand ... but they didn't seem to know how to use one initially, which was just ... well, words fail. Lucky for me, I can use a dictionary and a thesaurus, so I can confidently state that I found their ignorance appalling. Mostly because, seriously, who is teaching them..? But I digress. After some initial difficulty, they came to me with, ahem, "proof" that they were correct and I was wrong.

They showed me the word "sword". SWORD. SWORD. I feel like this signifies the end of reality as we know it even if Noel Edmonds dressed as God does not.

I know it's not just me that breaks down into a foaming-at-the-mouth fit of crazy-crazy rage at incidents like this, because Lynne Truss feels the same. What I don't know is if this validates my anger or just proves that I am not the only overly sensitive hate-fuelled self-proclaimed defender of the English language in existence.

Also, in the past two weeks I have ended up in three separate conversations about weddings (almost exclusively with girls who, like myself, have zero marriage prospects currently on the horizon -- I am unsure whether they, like me, just see weddings as a way to have a great big massive party in your honour) and two conversations about babies and children. Uhh, what the hell?! I've also been discussing the housing market, mortgages and buying houses, and fear these chats are all indicative of a wider malaise: I am officially growing up. *shudder*

Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go put on my Count Duckula hoodie and read a comics blog...

Big City Life

Ahhh, the city. I am a die-hard fan of city living: I enjoy the pubs, the clubs, the fact I can walk to the nearest cinema in under five minutes, that I'm within range for hundreds of different take-aways, the close shops....It's all good. There are downsides to living in the city, though. Obviously. A few of the highlights:

1. On my walk to/from work, I have had to step either over or frighteningly close to the following:-

• Knickers. A pair of fecking women's knickers.
• Several condoms, used. ...I presume, I didn't check or anything, jesus. Walking past the local park is where I tend to pass these. I don't know why a park is a preferred choice to, say, one of the many alleys in the area, but al fresco in a busy urban area isn't my thing so I wouldn't like to comment.
• One (1) pair of Bench jockey shorts, obviously soiled with faeces and hung on a railing for the world to see. Why they required display is rather beyond me.
• A needle. That was an especial treat to behold.
• The ubiquitous broken bottles/glasses.
• Dropped take-aways. Nothing worse than having to walk past last night's kebab on your walk to work at 8.15 in the bloody morning. Especially sick-making if you're nursing a hangover.
• The smell/sight of St Mary Street first thing on a Saturday/Sunday morning. The hen and stag parties are not kind to that street...

2. The people. Ahh, the people. I don't know whether cities attract the, shall we say, more colourful, eccentric members of society; or whether the sheer volume of people concentrated into a small area makes them easier to spot. Either way, you certainly get to see some entertaining/frightening sights...

• Drummer. He's a bit of a Cardiff feature - very tall, skinny black guy with dreads that are often coloured in eclectic ways, he usually has some eye-catching attire on (personal favourite; silver leather trousers, shirtless, with sunglasses and feathers in his hair) and is frequently to be seen beating out loud, fast rhytmns on the many bins around the city. Back when I worked in one of the city's department stores, he'd often come in to talk to us and the whole time you'd be really conscious that you were walking a fine line, that at any moment his friendliness toward you could erode into the mouth-foaming hatred he was expressing for his target of the moment (the government, police, someone who told him off for drumming on bins, the usual...)
• Toy Mic Trevor. He used to really brighten up Queen Street with his vague singing (I never once successfully identified a song out of the arrythmic cacophonic style he favoured) but I've not seen him in a couple of years and I have the sinking, maudlin suspicion that he may have died.
• My random neighbours. On the one side, we have a couple in late middle-age who obviously loathe us. During our Halloween party, we saw them filming guests who were smoking outside the house - the lady of the house had a camera pressed up against her bedroom window, trying to hide behind the curtains. They also stare out every time we take the bins out, and despite my best attempts to smile and be nice and say hello any time we see each other, the best I ever get is dirty looks from them. Conversely, on the other side we have neighbours so friendly they don't let a little thing like not speaking English stop them chatting to us. Using a series of charades-style gestures and the use of sparodic English words mingled in with the Urdu, I've managed to have conversations about our weekend camping trip, my breaking my ankle, and the weather. Their house also smells of the most delicious cooking and I am trying to work our chats up to the point where they offer me food. I love them. Across the road, meanwhile, there's a house that I am beginning to suspect is a brothel. Its house number is lit up in red at night, and there appear to be metal flaps that can be raised to conceal the numbers. The only reason I can think for having this would be to hide the numbers for when the residents aren't in for business. We've had police vans pull up in the street and cart a man off recently, which adds to this suspicion. Next door to that is Crazy Sweary Family. CSF are disturbingly violent: I've seen the woman screaming at her husband/boyfriend to "fuck off, just fuck off" loud enough for me to hear while inside watching tv...and this was in front of her young child, estimated age 3. Nice. Said woman was also locked out once: I was awoken by her banging on her door, screaming for her partner to wake up and let her in. This screaming continued for close to an hour before I cracked and called 101 - I had to get up for work in four hours and she sounded like she was ready to keep trying until she smashed in her own door. Happy days.
• Students. I was once one of them, and I think my bitterness about no longer being a student colours my judgement somewhat ... but is it just me or are they way younger than we were as students?! I'm sure the ones in the student accommodation nearby have an average age of twelve. But in dress sense, they're aged whores. During Fresher's Week we saw one girl in a skirt so short you could see the cheeks of her ass. I mean, fair play she had great legs, but still. Leave a little to the imagination love, yeah? The students are also the ones responsible for all the dropped take-aways and smashed bottles covering the pavements on the route into town from mine. You kids, you don't know you're born! GET OFF MY LAWN!!
• Library users. I think the anonymity of city life is a bad influence on some people, but we certainly get some characters. One lovely example: a society had rented the meeting room at a library I was working at. The woman due to lead the meeting called us and said she was running significanly late due to a traffic accident causing jams; the meeting was due to start in half an hour, and she was close to two hours away. When the group starting arriving for their meeting we explained this to them. One gentleman's response? To yell that the group leader should have called the day before to say she was going to get caught in traffic and be late that morning. He then starting yelling at us - we weren't even part of the fucking group, they were just temporarily hiring space in the building. Of course, obviously I was in the wrong for not using my magic crystal ball to predict the future and go to this woman's house in order to warn her the traffic would be bad and she should leave a lot earlier in order to make the meeting on time.
• The aforementioned hen and stag parties. I can't pinpoint exactly when the 'Diff became such a hotspot for these groups, but in the last couple of years St Mary Street has become the place the locals avoid like the plague, for obvious reasons.
• The whores. Working girls, if you prefer. There's a few that work the street just a couple blocks from my house, which is always disconcerting. I am also beginning to wonder if they're taking clients back to the house across from mine with the red lights...There are a few hooker hot-spots around the city, that I won't detail here because I don't want anyone to think I'm becoming some kind of guide to prostitution in south east Wales. But it's always a treat to see their outfits. As my gran would've said, their clothes fit where they touch...

But apart from all that, it's great! I'll probably rant more on this subject the more I think about it.

Shall I begin like 'David Copperfield'..?

"I was born; I grew up"...

And if you get that movie reference, there's a really good chance we can be friends.

Welly welly welly. I've dabbled with blogs before - check out http://www.myspace.com/shaunetteofthedead for rantings from the past - but a friend's recent blogging (http://www.geekyrabbit.blogspot.com/) has prompted me to take up the habit again. I just feel like I have so much to offer the world: my hate; my opinonated rantings; my solid certainty that my taste in books and films is better than yours....So, so much to offer.

So here I go again on my own, going down the only road I've ever known - the road of expressing myself through movie quotations and song lyrics, that is. I'll update this as and when I have a) time, and b) something I feel strongly enough about to blog on the subject. For now, a little about my good self.

I am currently working one full-time job in a library; one part-time job as a Youth Worker (yep, to the amazement/horror of my friends I am allowed to work with children); and two casual jobs as an Educational Facilitator, which essentially means I play pretend that it's the past and work with schools groups. Lots of fun. At present I live with my mum -- lame -- as I'm saving up to move out. Which will be very soon, fingers-crossed, as soon as my soon-to-be-housemate/landlord, we'll call him The Dog, gets an offer accepted on a house. Then I shall be what they call "sans parents" and can go to a movie on a school-night like that.

Mostly I spend what little free time I have chillin' with my bitches, the Geeky Rabbit of aforementioned blogging fame, her boyf. Mr Rabbit and their housies The Duke and Ginger (names not selected by myself) and our many mutual friends, first and foremost being Everyone's Favourite Racist (EFR), a.k.a. the Geekmeister. Let me show you around some of my core friends:-

1. The Geekmeister, a.k.a. EFR after a note-worthy bout of casual racism (in an ironic fashion, you understand). We did our Master's degrees together (yep, I am educated to the MAX) and bonded over our mutual love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the pub. We've been rocking our favourite public house, the P&W, for a good three years together now. I introduced her to Geeky Rabbit and Mr Rabbit just a few short months ago, at which point we discovered Geekmeister and Mr Rabbit are essentially the same person. Geekmeister now spends most of her time round the Cathays Triangle, where every time something fun happens without me I die a little inside.

2. Geeky Rabbit, a.k.a. Rabbit in a Hat. One of my many random roles involves organising and acting in interactive workshops for kids based on Alice in Wonderland, in which I am Alice. Last year I wanted to expand the show and add another character, so asked mutual friend The Lawyer if she knew any am-dram types who would like to play the Queen of Hearts. Geeky Rabbit was the one she suggested - and Rabbit ended up playing the White Rabbit, appropriately enough, and the Queen of Hearts. And she's the Queen of my Hearts. Oh yeah. We pretty much bonded over a child freaking out about the Queen cheating at croquet, and went from there.

3. Mr Rabbit - who I met by going to a fancy-dress party at which I knew no one. Rabbit had invited me and The Lawyer, but said she wouldn't be at the Triangle until 2-ish, because of work. I thought she meant during the day and hadn't planned on arriving that early anyway. The Lawyer couldn't make it; so, dressed as a Victorian explorer complete with pith helmet and whip, I marched alone through the 'Diff to the Triangle, and when the door was answered asked if the Rabbit could come out to play. Only to find that she was at work until 2am and wasn't there. So I joined the party anyway and befriended Mr Rabbit by talking Macbeth and geek-tastic topics with him. I also bring my complete box set of Buffy DVDs to the mix, which is why I frequently spend entire weekends lost in the Cathays Triangle.

4. The Dog - buying a house in which I shall soon be living. We met at Uni and became friends via mutal aquaintence Hawko, who I'll get to in a minute. The Dog is one of those shy, quiet types that take ages to get to know you and start opening up - and then you end up knowing him for eight years and getting such lines as, "One day Hawko and I fear we're going to actually rape someone, and then say 'But I meant it ironically!'" The Dog also crafted my favourite Valentine's poem: Roses are red, Violets are blue, And you're nothing to me. Nothing.

5. Hawko. Ahhhh, Hawko. Who got this nickname because of a time he passed out drunk and was drooling on himself and apprently looked like Stephen Hawkings. We did the same course at University, didn't speak for pretty much the first month or so, then discovered we were the ones involved in a heated online debate over whether music lyrics counted as poetry. And what started as a very intellectual friendship has devolved over the intervening years into something sick and dark and twisted that involves the kind of jokes I can't post on a public forum. We once wondered aloud what it would be like to have nice, supportive friends who don't judge you and make jokes about you. We concluded we'd have nothing to talk about and moved on from there...

6. Mimi. If I ever admitted I feel feelings, I'd say she's one of my very bestest friends. We went to school together and got talking because of 'This Morning With Richard, Not Judy'. We were in the same maths class and were sat next to two popular girls who, after the first week, decided they wanted to cut us off like dead wood and sit with each other instead. So Mimi and I ended up sat together. We sat in total silence for about 45 minutes, then Mimi turned to me and said hesitantly, "Do ... do you like 'This Morning With Richard, Not Judy'?", I replied, "TMWRNJ!" and started making Curious Orange noises, and twelve years later we're still rocking our almost-shared birthday (two days apart).

7. Ali. The Alster and I also went to shcool together, were part of the same friend-group that turned on each member one by one until everyone got kicked out (aahhhh, those happy teenage years) and Ali and I then didn't speak for pretty much a decade until, of all things, Facebook reuinted us! We now stalk sellectively follow the attractive young men of the area together and revel in our mutual geekery. I also introduced her into the Cathays Triangle, which you can enter - but you can never leave.
Much like the Hotel California in that respect.

Well, think I've rambled on enough for one post - I'll be back later to regale you with tales from 1923.