coming soon

I've just been writing for the last hour or so, for the first time composing the story of my sugar daddy. Been getting really into it but I can't carry on any longer tonight now, too stoned and tired. If anyone reads this and has any interest in sugar daddy ramble, remind me to finish and post it.

web waster

Smeddy's been nudging me to get back on the blog and I really do want to but "just can't find the time." HOWEVER, I have just spent half an hour playing speed word games on facebook after telling my little maya that i would come to bed soon, as she lies in our bed with a temperature and wanting her mummy! I'm despicable and have nothing to say in my defence. I'm completely addicted to those fricking word games. More than anything I've been addicted to before. It's because I'm not that good at them and I just can't satisy myself. I have tried to enforce a rule that I am not online after 10pm, otherwise I will never get off for one reason or another. Hence, in order to pull myself off the wordgame, I have landed here. In fact I must just not get online at all when I'm stoned. That's the dark side of being stoned, as much as it pains me to say it. You just get sucked into and stuck on stuff, which can be good if you happen to be doing something constructive but not so otherwise. Smeddy did in fact express a rare show of indignation that in all my web wasting, i hadn't put his genius blog on my radar. I still haven't read it Eddie, I'm sorry, I just egocentrically went to see what you meant by me being a part of your profile and couldn't work it out. Is it that your only link is to this dormant blog? Well it led me here anyway.

But now it is time to stop betraying my little girl's confidence in me and appear in bed next to her. Ah well. I had the evening to myself as Stu was out late last night and crashed really early tonight. Have enjoyed a little one skin and a couple of refreshing vodka cranberries but haven't made the most of the time. Well I did some chores and called one of my sisters in America. But not a dent made on my photos and general decluttering that is screaming to be done. Wish these times weren't so short. I feel so hard done by!

Let's see if I make it back here again any time soon.

missed opp

Alas. Last night I got home from some tapas and wine with some cool girly friends and, warmed by the vino tinto, felt spurred to finally get this blog back on the road. But I decided to first take a long overdue look at Billiam's and Smed's blogs and instead ended up passing out on the sofa with laptop on my lap. Ran to my bed at 5am, Stu still not back, and couldn't even manage to find my PJs so just threw everything off and shivered back to sleep again under the duvet. But I can never sleep properly in the morning when I've been drinking so woke up at 8 and had to get up. I'm now suffering zombiedom and have too much to do before driving to France with little Maya on Monday morning.

Don't know what I was going to write about. So instead here is another non post. Now I must go up to the loft so that Stu doesn't have a go at me for not packing when he's on full Maya duty so that I can have my hands free to prepare for our road trip.

i AM coming back...

...as soon as I get a few spare minutes.

speed dial interventions

My newish Sony Ericsson K850 has been acting a bit strange. It started on the week of my belated bday celebration a couple of weeks ago when Ken called me to find out if I was at the ceilidh yet or still at the pub and the number came up as 'Celine urbango'. This is probably one of the most random numbers I have in my phone. It's from well over 2 years ago, on some drunken night that I can't even place, but on which I remember getting chatting to a foreign girl who said she worked at this Urban Golf place in Soho - where you book a room to have a virtual game of golf with friends. At the time I thought it sounded like a really cool bday option and took her number down. I didn't end up Urban Golfing that year but her number has remained in my phone to remind me of the option, though spared less than a thought in all these years until I thought she was calling me at the pub in Camden that night! Other misidentified calls have been Mel calling under the caller ID 'DC', otherwise known as Snakey from my previous place of work (and a previous secret reader of this blog when there were juicy bits he could extract and taunt me with). I was chuffed to hear from him as we haven't chatted for a while, but it ended up just being Mel finding out what time I'd be in Kingston for our last dinner date before she goes travelling for a year :(

Another thing my phone has decided to do is change all my speed dials. I had actually got round to putting 5 in a few weeks ago: 1. Eggy 2. HD Blackberry 3. Petrus 4. Prawn 5. Dali-poos. (I was going to put you in as #6 Smeddy!).

But lo and behold, that same week of the ceilidh, those numbers were completely replaced with (only one of which I've dialled in over a year): 1. Robbo 2. Dali-poos 3. Lizza WGC 4. Catherine 5. Leo

Robbo:
Best friend of major ex, Jamie (can't remember his psuedonym anymore) the aspiring musician. I loved Robbo so much. He's one of those people who brings a smile to your face, kind, embracing and a bit different from the rest of his lot. A kindred spirit you might say. Also he was always up for it, always hitting it hard yet always keeping it together, his composure at least. Lovely Robbo. I remember wbout 7 years ago - some 5 or 6 months into my intense relationship with J and shortly before leaving the UK to start my MA in DC - Jamie had a large dinner/small party up at his amazing family mansion in Scotland that his mum had left behind. Jamie's eccentric older brother was holed up at the mansion at that time and, just before dinner was served that night, passed a platter of magic mushrooms around the dining table that he'd been picking and munching from the surrounding fields. Jamie had recently given up all drugs so abstained. I indulged a bit. Unfortunately everyone came up just as the food was ready so the haggis, neeps and tatties that Jamie had slaved over only got picked at. I diverge. I wasn't that into the vibe that night - Jamie's Yah lot suddenly seemed a bit alien to me and my imminent departure and separation from Jamie were weighing heavily on my heart. I got to feeling very dark. But Jamie had had a lot to drink by that point and was far from being on my level or in touch with that, he was first in public-school-boy-antics mode then soon after almost at passing out point. Only my darling Dali could see into me at all that night but was tied up with his young beautiful posh GF. I got fixated with the idea of a bath so went up to the room that Jamie and I had - his mum's old bedroom - and had a long sad soak in the bath. When I came out Jamie was lying on the bed drunkly smiling away like the little scamp he was but almost gone with the fairies. I tried in vain to rouse him or get him to talk to me but to no avail. I still have the image of sitting there on the floor next to the bed, desperate for Jamie to be present but feeling completely alone despite the revellers downstairs, and then seeing the books on the bedside table - one I remember in particular, "On Death and Dying." So then I got just that bit darker, imagining Dawn lying in that same spot the year before, contemplating her imminent departure and permanent separation from her children. And just at that darkest moment Robbo came bounding up the stairs, into the room, jumped on Jamie, forced him up and brought light into the room. Darling Robbo, that's always the kind of role I've seen him play. Recent years have seen a drifting - poker nights that never happened, newborn babies etc. Then a year ago I got a call from him saying he was heading off to Oz to chase the waves for a while, leaving his much lusted after (by everyone) girlfriend Jackie behind. He had wanted to run off somewhere a couple of years before - to escape this London life, the expectation that he would always be that guy who's up for it, hitting it hard and keeping it together, and the grinding down of your soul that happens here. I think he's back now. Maybe I'll write to him. Dear Robbo.

Damn, I'd planned on writing about all of the mysterious speed dialees but I got going on Robbo and now I have to get back to work. So I will add to this another day, sooner or later.

trickle

My attendance here really is pathetic. Maybe I should just sign off? I feel like all the things I have to rant about are either too ordinary and not worthy of an audience, albeit a very modest one, OR they are too personal to share in a public domain, such as why I am not making a big announcement of my recent engagement to HD or my deteriorated relationship with my aunty... Gone are the days of gossip generating. Gone are the days.

I still adore Uma though. Maybe I'll mention a few of the funny things she does so that I won't forget them, because this sieve brain of mine has very big holes these days. But this will be very boring for anyone else but me, and it is just for me really, I just don't have anywhere else to jot this down right now...

At 13 months Uma still doesn't crawl or walk but instead bum shuffles/butt scoots about the place - it's quite sad when she sometimes appears in the room, sees you, squeals with excitement to get to you and then remembers she's limited by her shuffle speed. When she's following me around, I'm usually already leaving the room once she gets there! I don't mind her slow mobility progress though, it means she's still a baby to me for a bit longer. And she does have very good motor perception skills. She sings to the radio. She dances to anything from classical music to mobile phone ring tones. She used to have about 4 different dance moves but these days she usually opts for arms in the air and twisting at the waist. It's very funny to me how baby's arms are so short in proportion to the rest of their bodies. Uma can only just almost touch the top of her head now. She's very determined and stubborn. When she doesn't get what she wants, be it a cuddle or her latest fascinating object, she will screw her little face up like a turtle and yell or fling her head and body back with force in protest, regardless of what's behind her. She's slightly learnt tantrums and has recently added foot stamping to her little outbursts, but it just makes me laugh. And it never lasts long, she's got such a lovely nature. Her little eyes almost disappear when she's full on beaming, which she does a lot. She is literally a sight for sore eyes and heads - on New Year's Day she actually made me feel better when she woke up and came into bed, despite me feeling like shit from no sleep, the previous night's indulgences and sheepishness from having made trouble at the NYE poker game. She also has this other funny smile that HD describes as her 'special' smile (ie special needs), where she screws up her nose and eyes and pants through her nose like some kind of weird creature. She thinks it's endearing, I actually saw her practising it in front of a mirror one day. Another recent thing is that when you tell her not to do something she will very deliberately stick her finger up her nose while keeping her eyes on you the whole time, just because she knows she's not meant to pick her nose. Ah, she also LOVES shoes, already.

That's enough, I'm bored and need to put some pix on facebook for my US siblings to see.

my baby

I haven't written anything about my baby girl since I had her 11 months ago.

I love her. So much. I worry about her. I'm excited about her future. I wish we could have done some things differently. I am happy that she is a happy baby. I cry when I think of her not being able to do anything she wants to do. I laugh at all the funny faces she pulls. I fret that she is not even crawling yet. I'm pleased at how intelligent and calm she seems to be. I am sad that I now spend more time away from her than with her. I am happy in the recent past. I am not so happy in the present. I feel this life closing in on us, horizons disappearing, and I wish for another life. I do wonder what the future holds for us, but I know it'll be OK if she just stays happy.

Feeling sombre, not a good time to write in this space. And the reason I held back from writing about my baby - let's call her Uma - is that I didn't want to stereo type, as it were. Didn't want to be a gushing mother writing soppy indulgent stuff about her baby that no one else is really interested in. Didn't want that to be all there is to me anymore.

BUT now I've started.

I actually just wanted to recall how it felt coming home to Uma last week after leaving her for the first time to go to Rio with work. I had been very blase about taking up all my travel again, actually looking forward to the 'time off' and the day that HD (he is no longer Eggy) would finally have to do it all himself, and hopefully be vindicated for the times he's been a shit about what I manage to get done or not. I look after Uma well. She's healthy and happy and a joy to be with (when she's not playing up). HD does not always do things my way or to my standard and won't be told, gets pissy when I try to ensure anything. She got really sick a day and a half after I left and had to go straight on antibiotics. My stomach turned over and hit rock bottom the moment I heard that on the phone and I staggered to act normal with my colleagues that evening. The guilty and powerless pain of being in warm and humid Rio overlooking Copacabana beach, eating amazing food and walking through the botanic garden while my baby rasped and coughed and lost weight without me and not having the certainty that she was being looked after in the best way was a new and very horrible feeling. She was apparently waking and whining for me. She suffered from my absence.

By the last day I was a bit of a mess. Everything I saw made me miss her so much that I cried a number of times - a little boy being pushed around the botanic garden, playgrounds (empty and unused), baby clothes and toys in shops. Everything just made me want to be back with her so badly. The excitement in the cab back from Heathrow topped anything I've ever felt from being reunited with long distance boyfriends. In fact I've never cried at being reunited with anyone before. Not my mum after weeks and months away from her as a child (well maybe, I can't really remember). Not my dad when meeting him for the first time at 10. Not my long lost adopted sister. But when I saw that little round face up at the window with her chinky eyes beaming away as if a dream had come true and waving down at me, and when she yelped and flung her legs up in the air and tried to dive down the stairs as I came through the door, the tears just sprung and I realised that there's no escaping that I am now an emotional and gushing mother.

tut tut

I can't believe you still check this tut. Do you spend all day on line cruising from blog to blog? How was your trip to London?