If you want to be added, comment on this post (screened to preserve your anonimity so you can say what you want without fear of ridicule/exposure).

Whilst my journal is often nothing more than a stream of (barely) consciousness, I find that posting too rarely means that I miss the small things; and the small things are often most revealing/amusing.

Of interest to me over the last day was a discussion/magazine article about being curvy. Lets just gloss over the fact that I read 'those' women's magazine (I haven't found a local meeting of HA - Heat readers anonymous), but many pointless journalistic inches are filled with tales of celebs who are TOO THIN and yet more about celebs who are TOO FAT. (the remaining pages are full of celebs who wear gorgeous clothes and others who don't listen to their best friend when they buy a new frock). That I read this stuff is shameful. That I tut under my breath at ribcages and pot bellies is hypocrisy of the most insidious order. I AM ashamed. Honest guv. But its so easy to get sucked in. And then I look in the mirror and remember that it has taken me so many years to become haphazardly comfortable in this skin. I realise that I am fierce about the tyranny of the body nazis and passionate about discovering the person within. It has been many years since I signed up to the pledge of non-judgementalism, tolerance and acceptance and my endorsement of these principles is as honest and genuine as I can make it.

And then I read Heat and for the duration of a fag and a coffee I lose it all. 'Curvy girls hit the beach' it shouts, with a big exclamation mark, put there, I am sure, to reassure us that its ok to have a lady belly - that lovely little softness that makes you want to kiss it. But they weren't very curvy really, they just had big knockers mostly. They were just not quite as skinny as the rib revealing celebs, the ones who are TOO THIN, and not quite as fat the the ones who are quite definitely TOO FAT. They clearly occupy that very rare goldilocks zone of the celeb mags - they are 'just right'.

So I looked at the pictures and thought, well, I'm not curvy then, I'm still just fat. And I felt a bit crap. Like I'm supposed to.

Then I put down my putrescent copy of the 'laugh and point' press*, stubbed out my fag, drained my coffee and rejoined life where the normal people operate.


*http://www.heatworld.com/default.aspx


This is a site which can be quite amusing, I used to read it, but became quickly uncomfortable with its malevolance. It's like Heat with tiger claws. 'Laugh and spit acid' press.
http://www.thesuperficial.com/

I think it was 8 years ago. I vaguely recall sitting with Jan, my cousin, on the roof terrace of their house in Italy. It was a beautiful evening. Jan and I see each other rarely and he and I talked all night. I was drinking rum. In the end I drank rather a lot of rum. I was ill for three days. I couldn't even keep water down and I blocked the toilet with endless torrents of spew. My uncle was horrified, ashamed even. There was talk of calling the doctor out but in the end I rallied. As soon as I was vertical, my uncle took me on a 'restorative' march up Vesuvius. If I hadn't wanted to die in the preceding days, I certainly wanted to hurl myself off that bloody volcano.

Never again.

On Saturday night A's friend came to visit. Last time he visited he promised to bring a bottle of proper Russian vodka - he is working there at the moment. The bottle was very pretty. Even though it is clear that Dave doesn't like me much, the booze meant that his insults slid down as smoothly as the vodka. By 4am, Dave and I had drunk a litre of the stuff and I was vomiting into the kitchen bowl in my bedroom. I woke A up with all my sobbing and ralphing. He wasn't pleased. Sunday was a a write off. Today I made it into work, but I was mince when I got there.

No really, never again.

How many never agains must I swear before I listen to myself.

My son is a soft focus boy, all rounded edges and squishyness. I suppose some would call him plump. The nasty boys at school call him fat. So does his Grandma.

I'm used to it. So is my husband. Over the course of our marriage, our weight has meandered from cuddly to lardy and back again. And every time we visit (a maximum of three times a year if we can get away with it) reference to our waist size is one of the first 'pleasantries' exchanged. "You're getting far too fat, dear" to A as he struggles through the front door with a suitcase. "Ah, you lost some of that weight, about time" to me, as I stretch the travel ache out of my bones. These days we barely turn a hair. She ventures, "You should eat breakfast, thin people always eat breakfast" as I stumble downstairs for coffee and a fag. I can barely talk first thing in the morning, let alone eat, and asking me to do either is risking death by sarcasm. She's lucky that A has trained me to walk on a short leash around his mother.

My parents took J down to his Grandma this year, splitting the long journey with us so we were less exhausted. They had lunch with my MIL and she was telling them how horrified she is by J's weight. "But E," said my father, in an unexpected display of caution, "telling people you are disgusted by their fatness can be very hurtful". My father is a 20 stone ball of belly, laughs and whiskers, he doesn't take too kindly to people telling him how to live his life either. "Well D", she said back to him, "people have just got to be told."

During his last call J told me that Grandma had offered him £100 if he could lose a stone. His father and I were horrified. He'll lose weight in his own time. 12 year olds do not diet, they are just given gentle education about nutrition and personal choice and unrestricted access to healthy foods and lots of exercise.

In the last eight years that boy of mine has lived through difficult times, dealing with the fallout from my mental health, witness to astonishing arguments, visitor to psychiatric wards and mopper-up of blood. That he has come through it as a kind, thoughtful and funny lad, is testament to his overall greatness as a adult in the making. And that is high on the list of what I value as his mother, along with intelligence, integrity, humility and, above all, the confidence to be whoever he wants/needs to be. His weight is a potential problem in terms of social acceptability, it is a potential problem in terms of health but it is low on the checklist of 'things I need to achieve in order to be a decent human being'.

I rang my parents to share my horror of the £100 bribe. My father laughed. "It's not a laughing matter Dad" I said.

"No, no", he said, "it's just that I already know. He's just come off the phone to us, asking if we can better the offer."

That lad's got a bloody good head on his shoulders. It must be a genetic throwback, he certainly doesn't get it from any of us.

Another entry inspired by a post elsewhere. I seem to have no original thoughts today.

The ancient art of Shibari, beautiful, with that soupcon of kink. Or in this case, with a soupcon of soupstock.

Lifted from ladies_loos

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=554870&in_page_id=1879

Assuming I actually gave a shit, I could find myself totally confused by this piece of insightful journalism. I'm not sure what young women are meant to do. Is it more terrible to survive on wafts of marmite like Posh et al, or is it worse still to rarely lift your head from the trough. Or do we live with our bodies, be healthy, stay happy, keep fit and accept the size we settle at, immune to snarky finger-pointing by the great unwashed?

em The last question is rhetorical, like I really needed to type it.

Yours

Cory
(size 16 like the girl in the photo, but with a baby apron, cellulite and an old tired face).

On the radio they were discussing what percentage of men felt they were more intelligent than their partner. It's an interesting twist on the 'are men more intelligent than women' debate which groans on year after year.

**I'm aware that it is generally accepted that we choose a mate of roughly comparable intelligence and beauty (which suggests that I am prettier than I think, or (more likely) I enjoy a state of permanent beer goggles). That said, he says that he thinks I am the more intelligent. This is arrant nonsense - our venn diagrams of intelligence have barely any intersection - I can't add up, even with all my fingers, and he can't sign his name without sticking his tongue out. This makes me think he is Einstein and allows him to delude himself into thinking I am Virginia Woolf.

He thinks this is unusual; in his (unintelligent) opinion men typically choose mates who they feel are marginally less intelligent than themselves, so that their egos can benefit from a drip-feed of boosting. I think this is unlikely in any secure man, though my opinion is swayed whenever I go to his works dos and find my conversation limited to vacuous chats about the merits of body scrubbing in the 'women's corner'.

I think this is the sort of debate best had with a pint in my hand (and a few warming my belly).

_____________________________________________________

** if you haven't seen it, bear with it, it's a damning reflection of life in the middle lane.



I Guess Youll Do - Watch more free videos

We traipsed around Wonderama*, part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival. J dug up a dinosaur, programmed a robots and unwrapped a Mummy. We had our photos taken by a pinhole camera and developed them ourselves and input our details onto a system which told us how special and unique we are. There were loads of fascinating interactive exhibits and even though we were there all day, we didn't manage to cover all of it.

When I asked J how much fun he'd had he shrugged and said it was 'allrightispose".

I'm uncertain whether this is the 'teenager' apathy kicking in - somehow it seems to be cool to squash all your bubbling excitement inside and pretend it's not there. Alternatively, it may be that he is simply disinterested and is harbouring a desire to be a bin man**.

I will be conducting a post-mortem into the psyche of my excitable, curious and intelligent little boy over the course of the next week. It may be too late for my son, but perhaps I can save others.




* http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/Wonderama

**This is my journal, I refuse to cow tow to political correctness about the validity of refuse collection as a career choice when discussing my son. I reserve the right to hot-house and nag him to pursue a satisfying career in line with his academic potential. I am aware of my hypocrisy, but now is not the time to point it out. So sue me, I'm a mum.

Easter unlocked the little box deep inside me where my chocolate cravings hide. Try as I might, I cannot get the demon back into the damn box. Gah.

Digg is introducing me to the backwaters of the internet. Here we have an article on toilet paper. I must shamefully confess my love of lavatorial humour - I blame my father, nothing makes him chortle more than a good poo gag. This resulted in one of my earliest poems finding its way into the Contorta family archives, inspired by him leaving one of his nuclear, supermassive turds to wink at me just once too often. (I was a kid when I wrote it, honest!)

"Ye cannae blame me, it's no mine, it hisnae got ma name oan it!"

First the link :

http://digg.com/educational/How_to_Use_Toilet_Paper?OTC-ig

In the interests of education and in case you've missed this I also feel obliged to refer you to the bristol stool scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Stool_Scale

And, for those with a deep and disturbing need to investigate further,

http://www.ratemypoo.com/


( Now the poem (which I think I've blogged before but who's counting) )

Yesterday a nice lady from the insurers rang up to say that they are writing off my car. I will be contacted today to hear how much money they are proposing to offer me in order to buy a new one. I rather expect the sum to be derisory and not enough to purchase an equivalent car. This doesn't even begin to address the issue of the hassle of hours of traipsing around shops and listening to idiots talking to me about colour and to A about specifications.

edit to say

The lady rang and they are offering me full book price. I need to work harder at this 'half empty' mentality. It's really not doing me any good and makes Cory's journal depressing.

*wanders off to find tools for self-flagellation*
*gets distracted by shiny things in the tool box*
*doesn't feel quite so bad*

Well, what a morning. I've had a car accident. I was just pulling up behind a car in front of me because there was an unexpected traffic jam, looked into my rear view mirror and saw a van that wasn't going to stop. He hit me and pushed me into the car in front. I tried to avoid him but there were cars on the other side of the road coming towards me and I didn't want a head on smash to add to my problems, so I just steeled myself and waited for the connection.

You'd have been proud of me. I sat in my car with my hands up in front of my face and howled. Wouldn't get out of my car. When I did I wandered around saying 'oh my, oh my' and doing nothing useful. The nice man in front got my car off the road, took all the details from everybody and I took them from him. What a numpty I am.

Anyhoo, goodness knows how much this is all going to cost, but it's not my worry as far as I can tell.

I might just say, if you're looking to buy a car, I would recommend an Audi A4. His car - a slightly cracked bumper, my car - front end crumpled. Or a Renault Kango. His van - a broken light and a cracked bumper, my car - stove in.

We all spent yesterday at the Bike Show in Edinburgh. The friend who came with us knows about bikes and carefully spent time teaching me what was good, what was bad and what to look for. I sat on many and smiled a lot. I had little choice but to come to the conclusion that I am old. The bike screams MID LIFE CRISIS - but I don't care one jot. It's not a fast bike, or a flashy sports one, more a classic old fashioned thing, rather like me. It is my plan to go for a test drive on the weekend after next and if it drives as prettily as it looks then my heart is won.

( Triumph Bonneville T100 )

In other news I have totally misjudged the review materials. I have two CDs and two books sitting there, taunting me, nagging me to review them. This is going to be tough as I have nightclasses twice this week, and I'm away for the weekend next Friday after work. I suspect my deadlines will be missed. pah.

The waxing was an experience. I howled as the first strip was ripped away, I think it was the anticipation that hurt the most. Afterwards it was fine, except that my minge is black and blue. This is a strange look and not really the one I was banking on. 'Gosh, don't you bruise well?' said my friend. I look like I've had a particularly vigorous ride on a very wide horse.

I should be so lucky.

My friend has qualified as a beautician and tonight she's going to tidy up my nethers. I've never had my curlies waxed before. I'm a bit scared the wax will grip onto the piercings and rrrrrrripp 'em out. She assures me this won't happen, but she lives pretty close to A&E so I'm prepared to chance it. I'm hoping that waxing won't leave me with pustules and ingrown boils because I'm going to visit a club in Manchester next weekend and I don't want to have to forgo the hot tub.

In the meantime I shall post two more 5* songs.

One is a guilty pleasure; I've had the piss ripped out of me in the past for my love of this classic Rainbow album (Rainbow Rising) and its "wee man with the big voice" frontman (Dio) but this track causes a real Wayne's World moment in our car on long journeys.

One is a new treasure; Praxis is new to me and it isn't easy always listening but I do love this track, I belong in the "Buckethead in an axe god" camp and with Bootsy it is just sublime.

( Read more... )

Tags: 5* songs