Seven months pregnant, maybe a little insecure. It probably didn't help that half an hour before I had pointed at the massively distended lump and casually declared, "Lord, you've let yourself go."
It was a joke. It was taken as a joke, she laughed and everything.
But a lady's mind is distinctly different from that of a bloke. Casual insults are one of the few methods of communication that a man can resort to without appearing "a little bit gay". Such is the level of insecurity round the issue of masculinity that the "Get the pints in!" will often be finished with off a little emotional blow such as, "you fat bastard!" just in case the previous statement sounded a little bit affectionate, and everyone in the pub suddenly formed the impression that the speaker was a bum-stuffing, lipstick-wearing, rim-tickling gaylord. At that point it is unlikely that the recipient of the insult will scuttle of to the toilets to check out his reflection in mirror* and fret about "loosing his figure." He will simply parry the attack with dazzling repartee, such as "Er, you nob."
But women are not made the same way as men, no, no no.** Things stew. They fester. Minds become warped.
She was walking through the middle of the living room, when she stopped. Just like that. She stopped and turned her head and asked "Do you still fancy me?"
Now, the correct answer would be "I love you more with each and every second I spend with you. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Let me make love to you right here on the carpet."
But let me paint a picture for you:
Faded cheap pink dressing gown,
Hair tied above her head with an old pair of knickers,
Wearing my Ugg-style sheepskin slipper-boots,
Seven months up the duff,
Recovering from a nasty stomach bug.
The only question I would expect such an apparition of beauty to naturally ask would be (southern american drawl) "Papa, Papa, have you greased the hog?"
She stood in front of me and asked again "Do you still fancy me?"
Quick witted as ever I replied, "Errrm, ah, oh. Well... Ah." Incredulous face of a deer caught in headlights operated by a giant tin of condensed milk "Yes?"
I think I got away with it.
* In proper pubs, the mirror in the gents will be three inches square, broken, greasy and about seven foot off the floor. This is to prevent any lingering, which is an offence, under the Blokes In Pubs (Urinals) Act 1724, Sections 1,2,3, 34, 72 and 128 (very common law.) It is the same law that dictates that seats must be removed from cubicles and that the floor should be flooded with a cocktail of vomit, fecal matter and wee-wee, to the minimum depth of "shoe vulnerability".
**Apart from my ex-girlfriend "Malcolm"
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Housework
I'm still not feeling too well.
This line is usually delivered in a peculiar croaky little voice. Particularly when ringing work. The sort of croak that no real illness actually inflicts. I can't stand it when people do that to me. That pathetic bit of play-acting. Like a six year-old who doesn't want to go to school. "Oh come on, you pathetic fool," I want to say, "stop whinging and get out your pit, you lazy malingering bastard."
Of course, I do croak to others. You know, just so they know I'm really sick and not acting or anything, I act just that extra bit sick so they'll know, that I am sick. Honestly. Sick.
I rang work today.
Which just leaves me here, in the house with the baby.
To relax...
Stretch out...
Play...
Do a spot of housework.
Bugger!
Our place, you have to understand, is totally and utterly scrubbed clean. Clinical almost. This is not as a result of my efforts. If I was left to my own devices I would probably keep the house to about the same standards of hygiene that are more commonly found in Shane McGowan's pockets.
My girlfriend, you see, is a wee bit obsessive about cleanliness. I don't quite know the science involved, but even though she cannot read or drive without the use of glasses, she can identify a speck of dust from five metres away with a naked eyeball. This creates all kinds of stresses for me, such as having to move, worry, move a bit more and then create new excuses.
On the days when I totally run myself ragged trying to meet the standard, I find she comes home, smiles wanly and then does it all again. This of course does wonders for morale.
I can almost hear legions of women tutting, shaking their heads, saying "If only he did it properly in the first place... blah... blah... blah..." Well, I say, bloody well come round here and give us a hand. It would take legions of you to get it up to scratch. Every day is a spring-clean in our house and every weekend, a full scale renovation.
The thing is. I love it! Okay, there's that thing of never sitting down until 10pm but the living in a clean, organised home bit is wonderful.
And there is that other thing of never being able to find any of my stuff. Its all been tidied away, see.
Every time I ask "Honey where is my passport/credit card/keys/shoe etc." I am greeted by that face. It says "Go on, ask me if you dare." I never get a straight answer anyway. I have lived with several women in my life and every bloody one of them has resented any attempt by me to lay my hands on my stuff. Answers usually range from "Where you left it." (Mostly untrue. I leave tend to things in the middle of the floor and over the years all the things have been moved) to "Use your eyes." (Silly me, I was trying to locate my keys by sonar). Eventually there is a fair bit of recrimination and blame, from me directed to my girlfriend, followed by protracted apologies when I remember that I did, in fact, bury my keys in the garden under six tonnes of quicklime "for safe keeping".
The final drag about the tidy house thing is that it seems to mess itself up spontaneously when my girlfriend is out. Its like she posses some magical force that sticks things where they belong. As soon as she closes the door behind her everything starts to slide. Sometimes I feel like the Mickey Mouse Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia. I've spent the last half hour knocking todays entry together and during that time a dozen dishes have actually used themselves, I'm sure of it!
How else could one man and one baby created all this mess?
Is that the time?
She'll be home in an hour. Time to start cleaning.
Maybe today it will be good enough.
But then again, (croaky voice) I'm not well, you know.
This line is usually delivered in a peculiar croaky little voice. Particularly when ringing work. The sort of croak that no real illness actually inflicts. I can't stand it when people do that to me. That pathetic bit of play-acting. Like a six year-old who doesn't want to go to school. "Oh come on, you pathetic fool," I want to say, "stop whinging and get out your pit, you lazy malingering bastard."
Of course, I do croak to others. You know, just so they know I'm really sick and not acting or anything, I act just that extra bit sick so they'll know, that I am sick. Honestly. Sick.
I rang work today.
Which just leaves me here, in the house with the baby.
To relax...
Stretch out...
Play...
Do a spot of housework.
Bugger!
Our place, you have to understand, is totally and utterly scrubbed clean. Clinical almost. This is not as a result of my efforts. If I was left to my own devices I would probably keep the house to about the same standards of hygiene that are more commonly found in Shane McGowan's pockets.
My girlfriend, you see, is a wee bit obsessive about cleanliness. I don't quite know the science involved, but even though she cannot read or drive without the use of glasses, she can identify a speck of dust from five metres away with a naked eyeball. This creates all kinds of stresses for me, such as having to move, worry, move a bit more and then create new excuses.
On the days when I totally run myself ragged trying to meet the standard, I find she comes home, smiles wanly and then does it all again. This of course does wonders for morale.
I can almost hear legions of women tutting, shaking their heads, saying "If only he did it properly in the first place... blah... blah... blah..." Well, I say, bloody well come round here and give us a hand. It would take legions of you to get it up to scratch. Every day is a spring-clean in our house and every weekend, a full scale renovation.
The thing is. I love it! Okay, there's that thing of never sitting down until 10pm but the living in a clean, organised home bit is wonderful.
And there is that other thing of never being able to find any of my stuff. Its all been tidied away, see.
Every time I ask "Honey where is my passport/credit card/keys/shoe etc." I am greeted by that face. It says "Go on, ask me if you dare." I never get a straight answer anyway. I have lived with several women in my life and every bloody one of them has resented any attempt by me to lay my hands on my stuff. Answers usually range from "Where you left it." (Mostly untrue. I leave tend to things in the middle of the floor and over the years all the things have been moved) to "Use your eyes." (Silly me, I was trying to locate my keys by sonar). Eventually there is a fair bit of recrimination and blame, from me directed to my girlfriend, followed by protracted apologies when I remember that I did, in fact, bury my keys in the garden under six tonnes of quicklime "for safe keeping".
The final drag about the tidy house thing is that it seems to mess itself up spontaneously when my girlfriend is out. Its like she posses some magical force that sticks things where they belong. As soon as she closes the door behind her everything starts to slide. Sometimes I feel like the Mickey Mouse Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia. I've spent the last half hour knocking todays entry together and during that time a dozen dishes have actually used themselves, I'm sure of it!
How else could one man and one baby created all this mess?
Is that the time?
She'll be home in an hour. Time to start cleaning.
Maybe today it will be good enough.
But then again, (croaky voice) I'm not well, you know.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Frankly
"So what did you do with your day?" my girlfriend asked the other day.
"Well," I replied, "when the baby was asleep I inserted the chin of the Queen Mother on to the head Frank Butcher."
Long pause, puzzled look. "Did you hang the washing out?"
"Sorry." I said.
"Well," I replied, "when the baby was asleep I inserted the chin of the Queen Mother on to the head Frank Butcher."
Long pause, puzzled look. "Did you hang the washing out?"
"Sorry." I said.
Too Much Information!
Yesterday the baba and me were stricken by a nasty bout of food poisoning, or gastric flu or something. Forgive me if at any any point in todays entry I lurch headlong into a drawn out description of this rather unattractive sicky-ness.
Personally, I love jokes about poo, vomit and almost any other bodily fluid. I find the words "too much information" - usually spoken haughtily by someone desperate for a tiny bit of status - one of the most offensive phrases in the English language. First of all, its such a bloody teenage thing to do, feign false prudery as a way of taking a cheap social sideswipe at the creative and brave. Secondly, what exactly is too much information? Is ignorance ever bliss?
When can we ever be too well informed? Even if that information is to do with the contents of someone else's lavatory bowl? I actually wooed my girlfriend with a load of poo jokes. At first she did try to act all haughty, but lets face it there's no funnier joke than a plastic dog turd in someone's pint. Don't become all haughty yourself now, there isn't.*
But last night there was nothing funny about the loo contents. I don't know if you've ever had a nasty gastric thing happen to you, but there is a certain point in proceedings where you have pissed about ten litres of rusty water out of your arse and projectile vomited an entire weeks worth of meals out and you think "Oh god, that must be it now. I've nothing left inside me. No juice whatsoever. Even my blood must be dry! Oh god, I must have stopped." You are of course wrong, things are just hotting up.
And so it went on, from five in the evening to about five this morning. Twelve solid hours without passing a solid. Mid-way I was joined by the baby, who even now is still tainted by that lingering parmesan fug of stale hurl. The thing is, she seems to have taken it in her stride, briefly waking for a quick spew and then peacefully nodding off back to sleep. Whereas I had to pace the landings moaning like some bloated ghost, turning the lights on and off and generally making a great show of my man-sickness. This morning she was as right as rain, back to her normal self. I, on the other hand, have sent my pregnant girlfriend to the shops with orders to obtain two kinds of soup, some energy drinks and various magazines and have spent the day generally lazing about and not doing any housework or fitting those baby gates that have been knocking around since she first started to crawl. I am also considering canceling youth theatre tomorrow night "just in case".
I do feel rotten though.
My girlfriend says men are rubbish at being sick.
I protest, last night I demonstrated that I am a virtuoso.
* "Oh, its so childish." Yes, it is. And bloody funny. Get yourself down to the joke-shop, take one to work and pop it on the bosses chair - or in the water cooler.
Hilarity ensues. Cards are issued. The dole awaits.
Personally, I love jokes about poo, vomit and almost any other bodily fluid. I find the words "too much information" - usually spoken haughtily by someone desperate for a tiny bit of status - one of the most offensive phrases in the English language. First of all, its such a bloody teenage thing to do, feign false prudery as a way of taking a cheap social sideswipe at the creative and brave. Secondly, what exactly is too much information? Is ignorance ever bliss?
When can we ever be too well informed? Even if that information is to do with the contents of someone else's lavatory bowl? I actually wooed my girlfriend with a load of poo jokes. At first she did try to act all haughty, but lets face it there's no funnier joke than a plastic dog turd in someone's pint. Don't become all haughty yourself now, there isn't.*
But last night there was nothing funny about the loo contents. I don't know if you've ever had a nasty gastric thing happen to you, but there is a certain point in proceedings where you have pissed about ten litres of rusty water out of your arse and projectile vomited an entire weeks worth of meals out and you think "Oh god, that must be it now. I've nothing left inside me. No juice whatsoever. Even my blood must be dry! Oh god, I must have stopped." You are of course wrong, things are just hotting up.
And so it went on, from five in the evening to about five this morning. Twelve solid hours without passing a solid. Mid-way I was joined by the baby, who even now is still tainted by that lingering parmesan fug of stale hurl. The thing is, she seems to have taken it in her stride, briefly waking for a quick spew and then peacefully nodding off back to sleep. Whereas I had to pace the landings moaning like some bloated ghost, turning the lights on and off and generally making a great show of my man-sickness. This morning she was as right as rain, back to her normal self. I, on the other hand, have sent my pregnant girlfriend to the shops with orders to obtain two kinds of soup, some energy drinks and various magazines and have spent the day generally lazing about and not doing any housework or fitting those baby gates that have been knocking around since she first started to crawl. I am also considering canceling youth theatre tomorrow night "just in case".
I do feel rotten though.
My girlfriend says men are rubbish at being sick.
I protest, last night I demonstrated that I am a virtuoso.
* "Oh, its so childish." Yes, it is. And bloody funny. Get yourself down to the joke-shop, take one to work and pop it on the bosses chair - or in the water cooler.
Hilarity ensues. Cards are issued. The dole awaits.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Living TV
As I was doing a bit of work this evening, I was vaguely aware of my girlfriend behind me making little ohhs and ahhhs. Tiny little nurturing sounds, as if she was trying to breathe life into a little sick rabbit that she had just discovered in the folds of her dressing-gown. Perplexed, I spun around in my Ikea "Tractor" office chair (only £16, but hurts the nuts after a while) to discover her watching "Birth-day Stories" on Living TV. Apparently she had just watched an episode of Baby Hospital and was looking forward to seeing a load of real-life in-colour, perineum wrenching deliveries.
Now, she is six moths pregnant, and really pregnant at that. I mean her frame (that is usually a svelte size 8) is absolutely stuffed chock full of baba. Quite how the she will find room for the next three months worth is a puzzle to us both. Her job just so happens to be teaching parenting skills and working with children and all our available hours that would otherwise be spent socialising or relaxing are spent playing with, caring for and cleaning up after our one-year old. So, why when the time comes to put our feet up do we spend it looking at a load of howling babies?
(they are cute though) ohhh.
The other thing about Living that concerns me is that its schedule seems to be aimed at three distinct target groups.
1) The Broody
2) Mumbo-jumbo loving believers in Psychic Phenomenon
3) The Gays
At a certain point in the evening it becomes totally, bum-touchingly gay.
Here is there schedule from Thursday:
5.00 Crossing Over with John Edwards (the man with the world speed record for bullshit)
5.30 The Other Side with a sad, camp Blackpool-style version of a John Edwards
6.00 Will and Grace
6.30 Will and Grace
7.00 Will and Grace
7.30 Will and Grace
8.00 Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
9.00 Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
10.00 Up The Bum with Derek and Jeff*
When do we get the TV that caters for fat beer swilling, boob-oggling, slipper** wearing sad-sacks?
I mean, apart from the all the Discovery Channels, The History Channel, Men and Motors, Bravo, Sky Sports 1, 2 & 3 and those strange late night call up thing where girls shake there arses like parksonian trifles, for hours on end.
I'm just asking?
*Schedule Totally Made Up and Not True
** My slippers are an Ugg boot style sheepskin affair. Actually, really quite camp.
Now, she is six moths pregnant, and really pregnant at that. I mean her frame (that is usually a svelte size 8) is absolutely stuffed chock full of baba. Quite how the she will find room for the next three months worth is a puzzle to us both. Her job just so happens to be teaching parenting skills and working with children and all our available hours that would otherwise be spent socialising or relaxing are spent playing with, caring for and cleaning up after our one-year old. So, why when the time comes to put our feet up do we spend it looking at a load of howling babies?
(they are cute though) ohhh.
The other thing about Living that concerns me is that its schedule seems to be aimed at three distinct target groups.
1) The Broody
2) Mumbo-jumbo loving believers in Psychic Phenomenon
3) The Gays
At a certain point in the evening it becomes totally, bum-touchingly gay.
Here is there schedule from Thursday:
5.00 Crossing Over with John Edwards (the man with the world speed record for bullshit)
5.30 The Other Side with a sad, camp Blackpool-style version of a John Edwards
6.00 Will and Grace
6.30 Will and Grace
7.00 Will and Grace
7.30 Will and Grace
8.00 Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
9.00 Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
10.00 Up The Bum with Derek and Jeff*
When do we get the TV that caters for fat beer swilling, boob-oggling, slipper** wearing sad-sacks?
I mean, apart from the all the Discovery Channels, The History Channel, Men and Motors, Bravo, Sky Sports 1, 2 & 3 and those strange late night call up thing where girls shake there arses like parksonian trifles, for hours on end.
I'm just asking?
*Schedule Totally Made Up and Not True
** My slippers are an Ugg boot style sheepskin affair. Actually, really quite camp.
The Stay At Home Dad
I decided to write this Bloggetty thing as of today. Well, its been building up within me for some time. The need to vent my spleen, convey my frustrations and have a bloody good moan.
Moaning incidentally, is what the English excel at. Not directly complaining, because that runs the risk of "making a show" of one's self. We would willingly face a firing squad rather than speak out of turn. In fact several Englishmen were shot by mistake during the first world war because they didn't want to embarrass themselves by speaking out of turn and "making a show" and cause the whole execution rota to have to be re-jigged etc.*
No, we moan. We moan insipidly, like grey rain. Not to the waiter who has served us up a turd when we asked for the sirloin, or the mechanic who has just charged us £100 for pissing in the oil tank, no. That would be too direct. We wheedle away at the poor bastard next to us on the bus or our partners or workmates or the people down the pub. Particularly in the pub. In fact the English public house is founded on the national character of negativity. Nobody walks in to a boozer with a wide smile on their face and declares how wonderful the weather is, that they love their wife and that the system of local public transport actually tip-top. They would be forcibly ejected by a throng of curmudgeons (or at least moaned about when they had gone).
The only people on Earth who can moan more than the English are the Welsh** and they are moaning about us..
I don't, on the face of it, have an awful lot to complain about. I have a beautiful girlfriend, an adorable one year-old daughter and another little monkey on the way.***
Apart from the fact that this year I gave up work to look after my daughter.
When I say gave up, I mean going part time. When I say work I mean playing silly games and going to parties for a living (I am a youth theatre leader and filmmaker) And when I say look after, I mean roll about on the floor singing a selection of songs from Ballamory. (Though I occasionally make room for a ditty penned by a Fimble)
The thing is, English people only settle down and have children when we have run out other things to harp on about. When we have driven away all those who would listen, if only we could stop moaning for a second. When other humans get sick of us, we simply make our own. Children are our captive audience and, strangely, the only people who we don't mind complaining to or making a show of ourselves in front of.
You know what?
They could be our salvation.
*Not actually true.
**Completely true.
*** That is a turn of phase that I have used to mean baby. Not a real monkey. I have repeatedly asked for one those and the answer from my girlfriend is always no.
Moaning incidentally, is what the English excel at. Not directly complaining, because that runs the risk of "making a show" of one's self. We would willingly face a firing squad rather than speak out of turn. In fact several Englishmen were shot by mistake during the first world war because they didn't want to embarrass themselves by speaking out of turn and "making a show" and cause the whole execution rota to have to be re-jigged etc.*
No, we moan. We moan insipidly, like grey rain. Not to the waiter who has served us up a turd when we asked for the sirloin, or the mechanic who has just charged us £100 for pissing in the oil tank, no. That would be too direct. We wheedle away at the poor bastard next to us on the bus or our partners or workmates or the people down the pub. Particularly in the pub. In fact the English public house is founded on the national character of negativity. Nobody walks in to a boozer with a wide smile on their face and declares how wonderful the weather is, that they love their wife and that the system of local public transport actually tip-top. They would be forcibly ejected by a throng of curmudgeons (or at least moaned about when they had gone).
The only people on Earth who can moan more than the English are the Welsh** and they are moaning about us..
I don't, on the face of it, have an awful lot to complain about. I have a beautiful girlfriend, an adorable one year-old daughter and another little monkey on the way.***
Apart from the fact that this year I gave up work to look after my daughter.
When I say gave up, I mean going part time. When I say work I mean playing silly games and going to parties for a living (I am a youth theatre leader and filmmaker) And when I say look after, I mean roll about on the floor singing a selection of songs from Ballamory. (Though I occasionally make room for a ditty penned by a Fimble)
The thing is, English people only settle down and have children when we have run out other things to harp on about. When we have driven away all those who would listen, if only we could stop moaning for a second. When other humans get sick of us, we simply make our own. Children are our captive audience and, strangely, the only people who we don't mind complaining to or making a show of ourselves in front of.
You know what?
They could be our salvation.
*Not actually true.
**Completely true.
*** That is a turn of phase that I have used to mean baby. Not a real monkey. I have repeatedly asked for one those and the answer from my girlfriend is always no.
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