Late night cups of tea

I accidentally went to sleep early, before waking up at midnight. The obvious thing to do seemed to get up, make a cup of tea and watch copious amounts of Castle. I never saw the Nathan Fillion thing before, but now I think I understand.

Today, or rather yesterday, has been spent knitting, watching Castle, driving 100 miles, being fed, and playing with Kittencat in Cattenberg's dad's back garden. It's exceptionally nice to be on good terms with the ex in-laws.

Time for more Castle and another cup of tea.

Cattenberg, pavement hero

It was a bit of a surprise to see Cattenberg this morning. Turns out he left for home around 1-1:30 in the morning, and then found himself in the role of hero/caller of police to a damsel in distress, sat on the pavement covered in a recently applied beating from some bastard purporting to be her boyfriend. He might be male, but that dude ain't no friend. Cattenberg waited with her until the police arrived. I hope life changes for her.

I think Cattenberg is having a good night

It's 2am, and Cattenberg isn't home. I'm hazarding a guess that he's made alternative arrangements for the night. I'm turning in to find my ginger little bed hog snoring and lying diagonally across the entirety of my bed. Who knew such a tiny person could take up so much room?

Swimming in boxes

There are cardboard boxes all over the place. Some of the lovely boys at university have lent me their moving boxes so I can pack up Cattenberg's things and generally get on with making stuff ready for the move in the next couple of weeks. So I'm spending the evening packing Cattenberg's things, while he is out with a lady. Oddly this seems like a perfectly acceptable division of labour.

Kittencat and I have had an awesome day today. She was at nursery this morning, so I used the opportunity to pack up some of her old things for a baby boot sale in just over a week. She asked me about the things, and likes the idea that we take the things, give them to people with smaller babies and in turn they give us pennies for her money box. She likes pennies for her money box. This afternoon we went to get boxes from the boys at university, then came home and played at swimming, which involved a lot of rolling around on different areas of the floor, designated as different areas of the pool, makeshifting ribbons into the paper bracelets you get at the aquatic centre, and clutching plastic toys, "swimsuits", to our chests. It really has been a lovely day, post bath we had a great play, mostly involving her clambering up my back shouting "I'm climbing the steps!" before tumbling over my shoulder excitedly yelling "I'm going down the slide!"

I think my brief spurt of going out more regularly may be on the wane, but it's not such a bit problem. Life is pretty good, and I can still go out, just in an organised, very very pre-arranged way. But ultimately, if I never went out again it wouldn't be the end of the world. She's pretty darn awesome. We have fun.

And my DVD collection is pretty darn awesome.

Once there was a monster called Pattern

Kittencat was telling stories on her way to sleep tonight.

Once there was a monster called Pattern. He tried to go for a little walk and it was very easy so he tried to go for a longer walk but it was too hard and then he died

She corrected herself, tried instead of died, but at that point I was laughing too much to remember more than the gist of the story. Pattern the monster does a bit more walking, and some running, and did the shopping and visited Grandma. Pattern's day sounds remarkably similar to Kittencat's. Save for the unfortunate incident after the long walk...

Done and Dusted

Soon it will be done. Done, dusted, back to civilised. It's about time, Cattenberg and I have done remarkably well to live together for so long given the circumstances, but I think patience is waning on both our parts, and we're both looking forward to having our own separate spaces. Luckily this is not too far away, Cattenberg's new lease starts in a couple of weeks. I'm trying to help pack up Cattenberg, and make the place all nice and homey for myself and for Kittencat, but there's a lot to do, and I possibly quit the happy green pills far too soon. Stressed as a stressed thing and it's all going to shit. Kinda. It's not so bad. Except when it is. You know what I mean. You've been there.

War is a drug

I'm watching The Hurt Locker on Film 4. And then I reckon if I'm still awake I might watch The Running Man also. I have copies of both these films, and have seen both of them recently, but this is no reason not to immerse myself in the oblivion of such a good combination of films, and ignore everything around me.

Curiously, possibly entirely rationally, I feel like if I don't seek some form of oblivion the only other option would be to weep my eyes out of my freaking skull. So I am ensuring solitude and seeking oblivion.

The crux of a conversation with Corky

Corky is allowed to tease me when I get drunk and kiss boys, but he generally doesn't tease me so much as light heartedly find out my intentions. Since Cattenberg and I formalised our previously unacknowledged but long long standing separation in March, I have slightly merrily (drunkenly) kissed two boys, one at Sounds and one since then, and I think Corky was curious to see whether any of these things was an interesting thing. The truth is that these days for me kissing is fun, but someone would have to be pretty darn interesting to me for it to go beyond that. And I've only really had any kind of inkling of that once in the last three years, as Cattenberg knows, and I possibly too much informationed when I candidly told Corky also, that it was not for Cattenberg. That said, it wouldn't be worth finding out if it would be a possibility, mostly because I've no cause to suspect any real mutuality in such a crush. And that's all it was/is. Never been one to get madly het up about these things, what you can't have is not worth much of your time. But nor is there any point in following up something where there isn't anything to follow up, whether it's through lack of spark, excessive youth, being in very different places in life, or generally the fact that life isn't currently madly geared up to that sort of thing, and asking someone to respect that they would have to stay on the periphery of my life unless they became important enough not to be is a pretty big ask.

So kissing pretty boys is probably something I'll do occasionally. But it's unlikely that there'll be anything to tell.

More films I watched recently

Django Unchained - I missed this at the cinema, which is kind of gutting. It's blooming ace. I'll be over watching it for a while, as I have no reason not to watch it at least once a week for the forseeable...

Gleaming the Cube - 80's CLASSIC. Cheesy, Christian Slater, skateboarding, high speed chase with a pizza hut van, yup, this film has got all of that in spades.

Iron Man - need to see the third one, so I'm rewatching 1 and 2. It's great fun, you know that.

The Machinist - Amazing film. And shit Christian Bale was thin. He could have played a successful game of hide and seek with nought but a lamp post for cover.

Inception - I enjoyed this, though the supposedly ambiguous ending isn't really ambiguous. Once the spinny thing starts to wobble, it's going to fall...

Black Swan - Okay, I tried to watch this. And then she started peeling the skin off her hands and I couldn't. I've heard its really good, but I'm a little too squeamish for the ripping of fingernails and skin.

Road House - "That gal's got entirely too many brains to have an ass like that". Great film.

Commando - I'm having a bit of a nostalgia-athon for Schwarzenegger et al right now. And Commando is amazing. I'd forgotten how turned on Bennett gets by the offer of the knife fight, but this is just good old kicking bad guy ass at its finest.

The Running Man - see Commando, but with dudes dressed up as Christmas trees with cattle prods, and unnecessary spandex.

Rollerball - James Caan. And Sam from Quincy!

Don't disturb my friend, he's dead tired

I think this weekend half near killed me, so instead of heading to St Margaret's Church for Dirar Kalash and Lovely Honkey on Sunday night, I watched Commando, and erred on the side of a nearly early night. Friday night was my friend Paddington's birthday and the Dots and Loops party at Kraak. It was lovely to see Paddington, and hopefully I shall see him much more regularly from here on in. Corky, Timbretone and I left somewhere around 10-10:30pm to go over to Dots and Loops, and on the way we intended to go and drop in at Port Street to see some friends. We arrived at just before 11, but Port Street didn't like the cut of our respective jibs, and said that they weren't letting any more people in, despite being half empty and an hour to go until closing. Another of Corky and Timbretone's friends was in the same boat, having just arrived he was also left bereft on the pavement. In our (my?) merry state, this seemed an unfortunate state of events, so we dragged him along too. Plank! were awesome. Yeah, all in it was an excellent night. Left sometime after 3am, jovially talked to a lady wearing a skirt that didn't really cover sea level in the street, with the successful aim of seeming excessively pissed so as to discretely check that the three men flanking her in slightly predatory looking style were in fact people she knew, before getting chips, walking back to my car parked round the corner from where the Boardwalk used to be, driving home and being all at once slightly relieved and disappointed to find Kittencat happy and asleep in her own bed, not sprawled all over mine.

 Saturday was The Pharcyde at NQ Live, formerly Moho! and also formerly smelling very strongly of stale beer and piss. I'm thankful that the refurb seems to have got rid of the smell, and left basically a big room with a big bar. It's really not a bad space, though even fairly simply done it's a little shiny for my tastes. The Pharcyde were amazing. AMAZING. And although I didn't partake myself, I miss the smell of weed at hip-hop gigs, not least for the slightly more mellow, less elbowing me in the head, effect it has on the crowd. After playing through Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, they performed a load of classics, as they put it the music that got them into hip-hop in the first place. The whole set was so exciting. They put such a lot in, they were paying real attention to the crowd, there was an after party at Night and Day (although I was a little too tired from getting up at 7am on 2hours sleep to be bothered going), and they seemed genuinely to be having fun, and to be excited to be doing what they were doing. I saw Wu Tang a few years ago when I was massively massively pregnant, and although the Academy is a very different venue, and they're very different groups of artists, the attitude brought and the experience as a whole could not have been more different. Wu Tang were seriously late, and when they came on they couldn't be fucked and gave a lack lustre blah of a performance. This on the other hand was positively joyful, and it seemed to be mutual to those on the stage as well as off. Despite being exhausted, this was an absolute privilege and pleasure to present for.

Yeah, my weekend was AWESOME. Hope yours was too.

Shorts so short they'd make a stripper blush

When I was a teenager, this is how I acquired a pair of shorts. My brother would wear a pair of 501s until they were so dead they had virtually no fabric left on the thigh, and the arse had worn through and were fit for nought but the bin. At that point I'd steal them, and wear them with cheesecloth tops from Rock Stop or that hippy shop next to Rock Stop, or stolen Carcass t-shirts, along with long long hair, army boots, leather jacket, and occasionally a top hat. And I'd wear them pretty much until the legs fell off, and then I'd be the proud owner of a pair of shorts, albeit ones consisting of hardly any fabric at all.

So I'm no stranger to shorts, and for them being fairly short. But lordy! Kittencat has been asking for a pair of shorts for a couple of days, and today we went to pick up a couple of pairs. And this is where it all went a bit crazy. We saw the boys ones first, and they were alright, knee length, bright colours, bit plain, so we had a look in the girls section at shorts made from pretty fabric with butterflies, flowers and so on. But man, they are short. I'm no prude, but, beside the increased risk of sun burn from the significantly decreased length, I'm pretty sure that hot pants on a three year old is more than slightly inappropriate. And these were SHORT. There was about half an inch of leg in total from the crotch seam. Seriously, Half an inch of leg on the girls shorts against about 4-5 on the boys ones. She's three. These were so short they'd have made a stripper blush, yet this is what's available for small girls. Children's clothing seems to be designed to mimic adult clothing indiscriminately. But hot pants were always something a bit risque, a bit sexy, not the kind of thing you dress your three year old in. Worse is the fact that part of the reason we looked at the girls ones at all is that she is socially conditioned to recognise longer legs and plainer fabric as boys shorts. But having seen the girls ones, Kittencat was lectured on the fact that they were just shorts, not girls shorts or boys shorts, just plain shorts, and that the patterned ones were too short.

Needless to say, we have a pair of plain blue and a pair of red check shorts from the boys section. "Those are boys shorts Mummy. They are just plain shorts."  Girls are conditioned early from the prevalence of this kind of clothing into wanting to dress in a way that can only be described as provocative, sexualised. I have seen girls not much older than Kittencat in the middle of supermarkets doing grotesque imitations of sexual dances from music videos they've learned from Saturday morning television to the sounds of whatever generic pop happens to be playing. We teach girls to objectify themselves, then we bemoan that they are objectified by society.

Fuck that shit.

It is a difficult decision

As to whether to go to bed, or stay up all night watching films. Possible contenders are Sin City, Full Metal Jacket, Commando, The Running Man... Maybe Universal Soldier, or Death Race 2000?

I need help to decide. Preferably guns, explosions and general machismo.

Cat Lady Towers is starting to shape up nicely

So today Kittencat and I started the first official day of our summer holidays. And to mark it we were super exciting, and started the mega overhaul of house. We did a complete rearrange of Kittencat's bedroom, and a reasonable clear of mine. This picture is after we shifted and cleared, but before we tidied her books and got a couple more pictures up on the walls. She's pretty happy, and even talked through sleeping in her own bed tonight. She didn't, but she did stay in her own bed until the end of story time. Kinda successful. Ish.

With my room a much bigger job was required. Although Cattenberg is in the spare room until he finds somewhere of his own, there is a fair whack of stuff still in my room, and that, combined with a hectic few months has meant that my room has become somewhat a dumping ground that I've failed to sort out. Boxes of DVDs under my bed, dusty paperwork and and a random assortment of things, these have all been cleaned and piled, and the room is undergoing the metamorphosis required to become just my own. Well, mine and Kittencat's, until she eventually regains the habit of sleeping in her own bed.

Over the next few days we shall be maintaining the pace we managed today and the house will be made more like our home. I'm not entirely sure why, though I think that it's probably because neither of us ever felt the permanence of our former arrangement, but we've never managed to make this place feel madly homely. I'm in the process of rectifying this now, and quite brutally I'm starting to pack up Cattenberg's things as I go. It's not meant as a "get the fuck out of my house", so much as that I want more than anything to make this place feel like home, and I don't want to have to redo it once he moves. So I am knitting, and sewing, moving furniture around, putting cushions and throws on things, pictures on walls, flowers in vases, and I'm cleaning everywhere. I reckon we'll be well on top of things in a few days, and then we're going to start on the garden, Kittencat and I, in preparation of the breaking up barbeque Cattenberg and I have planned for later in the summer.

So yeah, there's a barbeque later in the summer. You're all invited.

Temporarily broody

One of Kittencat's friends was having a birthday party today at a play centre near Marple. Kittencat preened for the occasion, and with hairband and about a million hair clips positioned about her head she ran riot with all the other three ish year olds for a couple of hours. One of the other mothers (not a scissor-skin terminator style hybrid of scary like in Coraline, but a real mother of a real child) had a 7.5 month old with her along with her three year old, and I took him for his bottle whilst she took her daughter to the loo. Yeah. He was nice. Babies are nice. I have decided I want one. Another one. I kinda want to have another at some stage anyway, though I'm not entirely sure how that's going to come off, but it brought home today that I'm probably about ready to spawn me another child in the next couple of years if the opportunity came along. At least, it doesn't scare the hell out of me like it would have done six months ago. To make matters worse, Cattenberg reminded me that if I wanted to take advantage of having a year off with full bursary, as is the lovely condition of if I were to molest a boy (or find a lovely willing participant for a sexless, turkey baster centred evening of fun) and knock myself up during my course, I've basically got a window of somewhere in the next 6 to 18 months. Cheers for that. On the plus side, he was highly, highly complimentary of my parenting, so, you know, if anyone fancies turkey basting a child... If the broodiness doesn't calm down, maybe I'll start an interview process or something.

I'll no doubt grow out of it again by tomorrow morning, but a little part of me is broody as hell today.

I am on placement

This week is fairly quiet, I'm on placement with an SLT team based around Skelmersdale and Ormskirk. It's quite awesome to have the opportunity to learn in this way, and quite exhausting, especially when you factor in the driving, and the exceptionally early starts. Obviously I'm not going to describe observations/client groups/etc, aside from the ethical implications, that's just not what we do here. But I can tell you that, for this week at least, I'm back in the world of three or more hours of driving every day, and I'm blooming well knackered. Cream crackered. Shattered.

Why the hell I'm up at 2am watching TV and rambling here is beyond me...

But I am at least having a quiet week in the going out department. No gigs or wild nights anywhere. Unless the weekend steps up to the belt, the craziest wildest part of the week is going to be awarded, with huge pomp and ceremonious applause, to Tuesday night's attendance of a class in Common where I learned some basic embroidery, drank some gin, and talked to some lovely ladies who I was previously unacquainted with. The class runs twice a month by an awesome lady called Nico and does lots random craft things. Apparently next month is lino printing. Quite excited. But this is what I did last night. It's a work in progress, so I'll post a picture or two as it progresses.

And now I'm buggering off back to bed. Night all.

Bald spots, ears like jug handles, these are all things I've found incredibly attractive

I am my mother's daughter. I have my neuroses,I still have to work hard to remember that black clothing is not the fat girls best friend, and indeed, I still have to work hard at times to remember that I'm okay as I am. Last night I had a conversation completely unrelated to this, and yet it made me reappraise everything that currently makes me insecure with fresh eyes.

I went to see Bark! supported by my twitter pal and noise creator extraordinaire Jiyah Kelly, and a lovely chap called Sam Andreae at St Margaret's Church in Whalley Range. This was a night put on by a chap called David Birchall who plays a lot of music with a lot of people including music made with bicycles in Levenshulme, and whose name I've been seeing around for a while but had no idea which face it belonged to. The audience was relatively sparse, but a welcoming, inclusive bunch of music and art types - it seems in being quite untalented I was, unusually, the exciting exception to the rule... Gary's set was awesome, some seriously dark viciously visceral noise performed with an understated and nicely pitched humour. Definitely a fan of the false ending, and the use of beer as pan pipe. Yup, Mister Kelly, you rule. Sam's set was on the sax, and was excellent. The level of control required to minimise the noise produced like that is seriously impressive and resulted in an exceptional performance. And Bark! was amazing. I kinda knew that it would be, but still, so good. It was an absolutely awesome event, and it was so lovely to be part of such an evening.

Part way through the evening I remember talking to a lovely lady flutist along with a couple of other people; we were talking about how fear can stop people from producing things in the first place, how fearing imperfection of technique or execution can prevent expression, and yet the expression of ideas is the important thing, that beautiful things are not necessarily finished, or perfect, or technically "right". This is a philosophy I am finally, at the age of 32, beginning to be able to live in terms of what I want to try creatively, it's a way of looking at the world that I constantly apply with my daughter; yet I am not so kind, understanding when it comes to myself. I don't look for perfection in others, it is always the imperfections in people I find appealing, interesting. Difference, fallibility. Bald spots, ears like jug handles, these are all things I've found incredibly attractive, though you'd never find them defined as such in the dictionary of good looking. Loud, embarrassing, foot permanently in their mouth, these are great qualities in everyone, friend, confidante, lover, EVERYONE. The perfect generally fails to pique my interest. Yet I write myself off regularly (at least in terms of potentially one day in the distant future thinking about boys) for being portlier than I'd necessarily like, for being difficult to live with, for pretty much everything I am. Despite the irrefutable fact (yup, fact) that I am ace, I am the overly self critical child of my mother, the defensive, and often abrasive or needy (depending on how I perceive people are best pushed away), but in most aspects of my life I have learnt that who I am is fine. What I look like is fine. I like who I am, and some people like me. If they don't, it really doesn't matter. But for some reason, when boys express an interest in me, I assume that they will quickly realise their error and run for the hills. Thankfully this just isn't an issue at the moment, but that in this aspect of my life I am just as cool, just as interesting or uninteresting as I am in any other aspect of life, and post pregnancy tiger stripe stretch marks all over my stomach don't really change that much in the grand scheme of things. I just need to remember that as I see the good in others, and the attractiveness of their imperfection, I need to remember to see myself that way again too.

Supreme Dicks, Vatican Shadow and Gnod

The other weekend was fun. Well, it was kind of a Thursday Friday weekend (30thMay-1stJune), but it was a lot of fun. Thursday night was Supreme Dicks at Kraak, an excellent night put on by a guy called Nick Mitchell, who works for Golden Lab Records and performs and records some excellent guitar based work under the name Chalaque. Supreme Dicks were supported by solid performances from Former Bullies and Gristed Petunia. The Dicks showed their support for the support acts by pausing in their pre-show consumption of dips and various dipping foods. Totally rock and roll. It was an awesome gig, and I'm so glad I went - The Dicks played earlier in the month at Dulcimer but I felt like I'd abused my going out privileges recently, and I bowed out so that Cattenberg could go instead, so when I found I had another chance to see the Dicks, I was as happy as someone who'd, well, just found out they'd got another chance to see the Dicks.
Friday was Vatican Shadow and Gnod at Islington Mill. I'd been debating whether to go, normally going to gigs solo doesn't worry me (thanks trolley dolly dude on the bus when I was 16 for the advice, it's been doing me service ever since), but 10-6 feels more like club hours, and I never quite got the hang of the idea of clubs or bars as a solo soul. That said, I really wanted to go, and at the Dicks the night before I found out that a couple of folks I know would be there, so I decided that worst case scenario I could just limpet myself onto them. Didn't go down that way, but it felt better to have the option. When I got there, the overly critical child of my mother kicked in, the defensive slightly cruel bitch of a push everyone away person I'm liable to become when I'm feeling insecure, but she soon subsided and got back in her box, and I danced with a lovely lady and we got talking, and over the course of the evening we had some lovely chats, and I had some excellent conversations with some beautiful people. Music was INCREDIBLE. I've been in the mood for this kind of thing for a while, the Gnod set was ace, as was that of Vatican Shadow. And I danced like a tool, which is my predominant, and favourite dancing style. I made some new casual acquaintances to say hello to, and on leaving I got given the lovely lady's phone number. All in it was a fabulous night, and there's another Gesamtkunstwerk night on soon. Hopefully some friends will want to go also, but it was fun solo. The guys at the Mill are a welcoming crowd, and I feel very much at home there.

Nought but Mummy ever again. BEST THING EVER!!!

Kittencat has just trotted off down the road with Cattenberg for a day out visiting Cattenberg's Dad. It's 8:30 in the morning, and technically this is a good thing. There is lots I need to do today. But I want to leave all the stuff and spend the day with my baby! I'm not going to see her much next week because I'm going on placement, and I'm sad about this. But... after this week, I'm off for the summer! Kittencat and Mummy every day. EVERY DAY!!! There will be a few nights out, plus some Kittencat meets Mummy's friends days out, and sometime over the summer there will be the Break Up Barbeque Cattenberg and I have got planned for once we've got our separate abodes sorted out. But mostly, for all of July and August and a little bit of September (a full ten weeks) it is just Kittencat and Mummy time.

And then it will be term time, and there will be nursery, and Woodcat time in the mix again, but I think by then we might both be ready for that...

Cattenberg amongst the pigeons

Cattenberg just got home from a night out. I am under the distinct impression that he is making a favourable impression on the ladies right now. I like this. Cattenberg is awesome, and just because we don't hit it off that way is no judge on any of his awesomeness. I am glad Cattenberg is getting attentions, I think both of us have felt a little crap about ourselves in that way for some time now, and he deserves more than that.

Actually, the way I'm saying that makes it sound like I don't believe I do. That's not how it is. Not really. At times my opinion of myself is low, but I'm mostly more rational than that. But whether that kind of thing would be nice or not, I'm not sure if or how anything like that would fit into my life right now. There is a lot of studying over the next three years, quite aside from the beauteous Kittencat who dominates my life as well as my world - "Do this mummy, do that mummy" - quite frankly the prospect of meeting anyone who would want to fit around my life is low. Again, that sounds negative, but it doesn't worry me. I have lovely friends, and my capacity for going out is limited, I'm pretty sure that the time I do have will be best served with my friends, and going to interesting music things and art things. Besides, I have a small little bed hog that snuffles and snores and strangles me in my sleep proclaiming "I've got you Mummy, arh!" before contentedly rolling back over and snoring loudly. Not withstanding time, I don't have room in my bed for other people.

The only come ons I get are from drunk anonymous men offering to befriend my child in order to get into my knickers which smacks of   a) extreme desperation, b) inordinately drunk and would run a mile as soon as they sober up, or c) dubious intentions. It's not normal for someone to be more interested in you because you've got a kid, and it's kind of freaky when you get that impression. Given that it'd be unlikely that I'd meet anyone who either wouldn't consider me a mistake or would in fact be one themselves, I'm taking full advantage of not caring about these things and focusing on Kittencat and myself. It might happen one day. But for now I'm just planning a summer of gardening, yoga and craft with KC, with occasional gigs and nights out courtesy of Cattenberg's babysitting skills, and being excited and happy that other people are reminding Cattenberg how awesome he is, and that women are seeking him out. He is great, and deserves to be reminded of that.

SORTED IT ALL OUT. Just like you knew I would. I always do.

Yeah. Sorted stuff. Stayed up all night, ran an errand in the early hours. It all worked out spectacularly well, except now I'm a little tired. I watched Road House, because films like that are fun when you're tired. Now I'm watching The Machinist, but I'm thinking I should have gone more along the lines of Predator, or Cobra, or Total Recall or something like that. Point Break is on the iPlayer, maybe I should watch Keanu Reeves try to match his facial expression with that of his surf board instead...

Tired.