Janey's Blogs - October 2011
Saturday the 1st of October 2011
09:44:50 PM
Stuff me and my daughter have learned
Things I have learned in my life - by Janey Godley & Ashley Storrie.
Below is a list of things my daughter Ashley and I compiled for your perusal. We have travelled around the world a bit and seen some stuff and shared some experiences and this is our list. Enjoy.
1. Screaming at toddlers when they fall doesn't stop them crying or bleeding.
2. Asking loud drunk people to be quiet on the train makes them want to hit you.
3. Hugging rabbits really tightly kills them.
4. Telling a small girl about age four not to repeat the words Fuck sake doesn't work. She will repeat those words and usually in front of the one begging nun that stands outside a shop.
5. Hoping that the spot on your nose will disappear in time for a photo shoot will not make it disappear.
6. Assuming middle class people to be well behaved drunks at a comedy night is incorrect. (They are worse - That self-centred sense of entitlement makes them horrible.)
7. You don't have to be white to be racist.
8. False eyelashes rip your own eyelashes out: now you have two problems.
9. Spot cream does kill spots and unfortunately also all the skin surrounding the spot way after the spot has faded.
10. Sanitary towels are designed to fold over accidentally and then stick to your pubic hair and rip it out when you pull down your knickers. It's just in case you aren't in enough pain already.
11. Walter Matthau and Saddam Hussein were not the same person. Never get them mixed up in the picture round of a pub quiz.
12. Crotchless pants are just damaged goods.
13. If you pronounce the word VAGINA with an ‘F' at the start instead of a ‘V' it makes it ten times funnier.
14. Standing on stage screaming about a woman that hurt you in a monotone voice doesn't make you a comedian, even if your drunk pals, told you it was 'ridonkilously great'.
15. Being Jewish/Muslim/Christian/Scientologist doesn't mean you are right.
16. Never have sex on your friend's suede couch... Just don't.
17. Screaming drunken football chants doesn't make random strangers like your team.
18. Buy hotel internet - It's expensive, but then claim it didn't work and demand a refund. They can't prove otherwise.
19. Cough loudly and in a sick manner, sweat profusely and moan when on any form of transport to ensure solitary seats. Don't overdo it or they think you have swine flu and don't let you travel.
20. When on a busy train platform, talk to people and create an allegiance so that, when the crowd surges forward, you as a group can get seats for each other.
21. Hide a child's favourite toy and pretend it went away and it won't return till they eat cauliflower.
22. Always fart in the bank queue - No reason, just do it.
23. If a man comes on to you and you don't want to hurt his feelings because you don't fancy him, tell him you are into fuzzy humping (dressing as animals and fucking) or tell him you like sex and pain on a daily basis. That usually works for me (Ashley Storrie).
24. If you hate cooking and people keep talking about recipes and a good idea for a quiche, blurt out you can't have children and are barren now, to get them off the subject.
Monday the 10th of October 2011
09:54:30 PM
Life as I know it indeed
Husband has Aspergers.
Everyone knows this and some people are interested in how it affects our marriage and life. If you are one of those people then here's a thing - if I say something pretty innocuous like:
"Oh look - that couple across the road have painted their door."
He will look at me with a weary look and say:
"It was me who told you about that painted door about a week ago."
I look at him and reply: "I don't recall you telling me the people have painted their door. I have just noticed it now. Does it matter who knew first? I am just remarking on a thing my two eye balls spotted!"
He stares at me as if I am mad.
What would make me think he would let this go? He obviously told me about that painted door last week and to prove it he barks: "You and Ashley were on the couch, you were wearing a towel on your head and Ashley was painting her toenails and I said to you both: The people across the car park have painted their door. It was me who told you this, not you telling me about the door just now, as if I didn't know about it."
I stared blankly at his commitment to this dull uneventful subject.
He then recreated the scene of him telling me about the painted door like a forensic scientist, painstakingly revealing each step of the situation where we were what we were doing when he told us about the painted amazing painted door. I am surprised he didn't have an overhead projector and slide show of evidence. He was staring at me with agog eyeballs at my forgetful stupidity - How can I not recall where I was when he was telling me important door-painting information?
I now hate the painted door and resolve to say in future: "That's right. You did tell me about that painted door. Why would I mention it as if you knew nothing about it? I am nought but a fool."
These tiny tics in his personality can drive me mad - that and his need to be the original source of any information I have gathered or recently stored in my brain makes me grabby for blunt instruments. The upside is I understand that it is Aspergers that makes him constantly fixate on some daft wee things, that aren't daft to him but annoying to us.
Having said tha,t I think we all have a wee bit of Aspergers in our psyche, don't you?
I just hear the words 'Michael Jackson' or 'Polanski' and I am on Twitter and Facebook getting my dander right up and slightly foamy at the side of my mouth, repeating myself over and over again.
Then again why can we accept that Michael Jackson was an alleged child abuser, yet allowed to get some mate's sperm inserted into white women so he can create white children for his own amusement? No social services get in the way? Makes me sick!
My other mildly Aspergers trait is counting steps onstage all across the country/globe and then trying to recall them at a moment's notice – Nottingham=3; Glasgow=2; etc... You get what I mean? Well, I have in my head the number of steps up to the main stage of almost every gig I have ever played worldwide. That's fucked isn't it? I don't think I have any right to talk about husband when I am clearly nuts myself!
I actually said out loud last night to husband: "Did you know there are fourteen steps up to the stage area at Brighton Dome?"
He looked at me and said: "It was me that told you that!"
He hasn't been to Brighton Dome.
I whipped my head round getting ready to throw this information into his face and he was already laughing at me with a cheeky wink.
Thursday the 27th of October 2011
06:12:54 PM
Big Catch up Blog
Have you ever woken up at 4am and realised your skin is swelling up? No? Good on you, coz that's how I woke up early this morning. Seems prawns really hate me and every time I eat one they squirt some liquid into my blood stream that I am allergic to. I know you are thinking Why eat them if you have an allergy to them? but it's doesn't happen everytime. It is like playing Russian roulette stir fry, but it happens so infrequently I thought I could get away with it. AND it isn't always prawns! I can eat any fish and get this weird reaction.
So I ended up getting driven through the empty streets of Glasgow as my mouth went fat and thick with swelling. Husband simply kept calm and managed to slip through a stream of green lights as if the traffic gods were on our side and waved us through the worrying journey. Me and my husband couldn't look at each other in case I saw the fear on his face as he saw the swelling on mine. Good news - I am fine, I got treated and it all calmed down.
So, it has been a long time since I blogged; lots has happened. For instance, Gadaffi got killed and we all had to look at his dead body on constant news streams. The OCCUPY movement has gone global. People in over a 100 major cities have started camping out in the streets to show their anger at greedy bankers and the 99% of people affected by the financial downturn. We have an OCCUPY in Glasgow but, unlike other cities, we had a sexual assault at ours. To make matters worse we also had a suspected homophobic attack on a young man in east Ayrshire where he was beaten and burned to death. Sometimes I feel like the people of my thriving exciting country are going backwards instead of forwards.
Don't get me wrong - Scotland is a vibrant exciting country but sometimes it feels like we harbour and nurture things like homophobia and sectarian hatred. We still have an 80% rise in domestic abuse on the day when Rangers football team play their rival Celtic. Can you believe that families sit in fear of their loved ones who are coming home from a football match in Glasgow? Families still batter religious hatred into their kids. I know - I was told to hate Catholics when I was younger, but I married one instead.
Homophobia is still a dirty cancer on our modern society. People still raise kids with spitting hatred and deep-seated prejudice against the gay community and, let's not kid ourselves, religious bashing alongside to reinforce that theory doesn't help.
People have said to me “Would you care if Ashley was gay” and the answer is – yes I would care because I worry how she would be treated by others, but not care about her sexuality in itself.
I worry that the next generation of my family - e.g. great nieces and nephews - might have to come out as gay and how they will be treated in a Scotland of the future.
Having said that, a big salute to the many families who raise their kids up to believe religion, creed, colour and sexuality mean nothing as long as you have respect for each other. My niece Ann Margaret has three kids whom I totally adore, aged 5, 8 and 14 and all three are brought up to discuss what ‘gay' is and explore why some hate black people and basic world politics and religion. It isn't that hard to make sure when you speak to young kids that they know you don't hate the world and the other inhabitants who are different from you.
Those kids are even encouraged to touch spiders and not kill anything in nature. We are not religious but we don't want them growing up haters. It isn't that hard to do.