Diary Of A Redhead

[mylolita]

My daughter was blowing me a million kisses as I walked backwards towards their bedroom door. I put my hands up to my cheeks. "Oh! Oh! Angel. Little lovely hearts on my cheeks!" Where her air kisses were landing.

I was about to leave, and I heard her sweet, husky, breathy voice say, "Remember Mammy, I love you."

I died a thousand deaths. A thousand hearts, a thousand more!

x

[mylolita]

I decide what demons I digest
I'm just tired of repeating, I digress
Trying to find deeper meaning in nonsense
Trying to grow without hating the process


x

[mylolita]

Always had a hot thing for the rapper Nelly.

 

I feel like I know his type. Beefy, brutish look, but secretly a sweet tender side once you’re let in. It intimidates me but excites the hell out of me at the same time.

 

Just mamas type! 
 

Nostalgic, smooth mellow r&b! Corny corny corny! 
 

 

x

[mylolita]

If you think I’m just some vapid idiot who doesn’t have a clue and fell on everything in lucks good graces, y’know… well… you might just be wrong there. You might be very wrong.

 

This kitty has nine lives, and falls on her feet.

 

Grace is underestimated. Grace can’t be taught. Sweet, but there’s an edge.

 

You’re coasting.

 

I could spin you a story or two. 
 

Girls in THAT mood. I defy you, you, you, and YOU! And I’ll do it in style.

 

x

[mylolita]

———

defy

dĭ-fī′

transitive verb

To oppose or resist with boldness and assurance.

To refuse to submit to or cooperate with.

To be beyond the application or scope of; be contrary or resistant to.

————

 

Meow.

 

x

[mylolita]

Today I took a drive out to a very old place. A sacred, cloistered place, I used to go when I was a tiny bambino. I drove the kids to the remains of a 14th century monastery. Part of it still stands, one of the buildings a monk would curl up in, pour over texts, cup his candle, take the ebbed walk across the walled garden to the outside lavatory, still there. The sack curtained, dipped bed looks ruffled and in-made, as if he just popped out to take a walk around the herb garden, and if you turned around, behind the small, heavy stone arches of the door, he would face you!
 

The whole place, even the drive up to it, has an enclosed, comforting feel. The land envelopes you. Behind the back outer walls of the main Abby, the land, covered in thick forest, is near vertical. The wind is ushered to a stop, noises hush. The whole place feels precious, full of quiet. Clarity comes as the senses no longer compete for any other stimulation. Even my wild beating heart, the flutters stop. All internal tremor is cooled. For one moment of personal sanctuary.
 

There has always been something about a walled garden for me. What is it? The enclosed, serene, privacy? The closing off of the world to enter into a secret oasis, created and cultivated, and contained? Something soothing? Like the walled gardens within the ancient Roman walls, mosaic floors leading to large potted palms, cool pools, stone lounge benches? Away from the roaring wheels of chariots, the brazen hefty barter shouting, the war and death and life? The high walls of the Georgian rose gardens? Blooms so special and delicate, preserved for hundreds of years, elegantly growing, thick, wiry bark entwining up the enclosures in ornate patterns of the creators will? Like a dainty, eternal woman made into blooms?
 

To see the children walk about the low hedge rows, shielded by these huge, medieval walls, was something to witness for the soul. Along the slim gravel footpaths were, I saw, rows and rows of sprawling violets. A hot, acidic lump came to my throat. I could feel the tears threaten to well. Violet was the name of my Grandma. God, I miss her so. Suddenly, sorrowful bitterness welled up within me! Why?! Why do all the few few people I love, I feel rare akin too, who might just understand me, have to leave?! 
 

For once, I could have fell to my knees in a near religious, begging pity. Instead, I ducked down to hide my face, and tenderly picked a single violet that seemed the most friendly one too me. I promised myself to keep it forever, and press and dry it in a frame the next day. I popped her in my pocket. Maybe she smiled on me, in whatever way, that grey, majestic, protected afternoon in that 14th century walled garden? 
 

D’s Aunty, who I get on with hugely, and share such similarities with, is going in for open heart surgery on Sunday. A few months ago we found out she had an aggressive form of cancer. She’s 81. He didn’t have to say anything to me, the news was solemn enough. I understand she might not get through the operation.

 

I remember the last phone call we had, everything that was said. How tender she was in her forthright, brilliant, masculine way. I adore her. I couldn’t help thinking, oh God, please, not another one of those “last telephone conversations” where I didn’t really know it, only to find one of my best friends gone the next, then a funeral? To replay everything they said over and over, tormented by last words through the line, their voice only inside my mind, their bodies in the ground?!

 

A secret little garden, is the heart. A walled one at that. 
 

x

 

[mylolita]

I’m at a Mammy What The Flip Am I Doing point all of a sudden.

 

The house is large, the kids are off for half term, I turn my back to do something for twenty minutes and the place looks like a page outta Peepo. They start fighting over everything, suddenly can’t share - they push weeny tottering bambino out and are plain cruel to her, actually, and it’s gone on where they started completely indifferent to her when she was tiny, sat in a little bouncer, watching all the goings on, and has morphed the last 8 months into all our warfare. My son instantly flips and goes to lash out when something doesn’t go his way. This has probably been building the last few months as well. My daughter sees the same and they end up fighting like for like. Boisterous play wrestling turns to insta tears and my baby girl toddles around me desperately needing to be held up at my hip for fear of all the chaos.

 

It’s driving me nuts. I can’t seem to get through to them. Time outs, taking something away for the day, even hearing No is one massive huge challenge now, where as it was taken on the chin sweetly and accepted for the most part a year ago.

 

I’ve always done everything. Cleaned up, cooked every single meal, made everything single drink, but the kids are disrespectful and treat me like a maid. I’ve started showing them how to make their beds on a morning, or I’ll say we can’t go downstairs until your bedrooms straightened out. I will go in the bath on a morning, leave them yo play for half an hour down the landing or in their room and I walk into two whole bookcases worth of books pulled out onto the floor. The Rolling Stones couldn’t hope to trash a room better. Juice bottles throw over their beds empty, dress up clothes flung into the air left to where they land, whole boxes of Lego poured under chairs and beds, my baby girl into a lower part of the wardrobe just making her way pulling clothes out and flinging them behind her like a nervous woman panicking over what to wear for a date. All of this combined makes for half an hour of destruction that leaves me frustrated.

 

It makes me feel guilty. Because I don’t blame bambino at all, so she’s let off, but the older two do it with glee knowing it winds me up, because I can hear the literal “tee hee hees” cheekily tweeting from their rose petal LIPS! 
 

I know kids will be kids. A 5 year old and a 3 year old for Petes sake on a rainy day. Alright. It’s not the end of the world. But over and over again, all day? And an argument now over everything? It seems like he is in a power struggle with me. The boy wants his own way, so does my curly girl. It’s typical kid stuff. But maybe I’m looking back with rose tinted glasses thinking… God knows me and my sister would have dared acted this way! And my Dad is strict and firm and doesn’t give endless warnings, and my Mum was always timid and unsure so left him take control of the parenting game whenever he was home from work.

 

The weather was majestically windy, brutal rain was slashing down in gust swirls at the window. I love indoor days. Yet yesterday was one of the most frustrating and lonely days I’d ever had with the kids. Nothing worked, argument between them all. I was so disappointed. I lost my rag a few times. D was away until very late, I had zero help. Nothing is organised in the house because we are in limbo renovation world, which adds to my stress, as I’m a clean and serene light candles tidy and cosy flowers in vases have a coffee let’s read a book kinda gal, and it wasn’t going down that way, not one bit.

 

It was 7pm and my baby was sick three times. It was too late to clean it properly up in the nursery, she was drifting off after feeling not too well, so I added another mountain to my Everest washing pile for that day, and went to see the other two, who beautifully were playing with craft Pom poms on my sons bed, putting them in little pots and boxes and singing to each other. In my complete frustration, I had said something to my son I regretted. I had said, “I tell you what! I can’t WAIT for those school gates to open!!!” He had become defiant straight away, rebutting, “Well I can’t WAIT TO BE AT SCHOOL you are super Mammy Mam the BEST EVER I love you but sometimes you are HORRID MAMMY AND I WANT TO LEAVE HERE AND NEVER COME BACK!”

 

God! So there was our first argument as mother and son. And I’m not proud of it.

 

After the noise and battle of the day, seeing them play angelically, my heart melted and we snuggled and I told him I didn’t mean it and I loved having him at home with the girls. He seemed hurt. I felt beyond terrible.

 

I’d made myself a herbal tea, and I sat on the floor between their two single beds with a large Enid Blighton book, ‘The Faraway Tree’, and he was hyperactive again and knocking me and messing on and I said son, get those kicky legs tucked in or we can’t start this story, and he kept going nag and nudging then my daughter started, then he fell into me down between the beds, knocking my warm tea all over the new carpet and my silk house trousers. 
 

He instantly said, “Sorry Mam! Sorry! I didn’t mean it!” 
 

I said, “If you’d just do as you are told and snuggle in this wouldn’t happen!”

 

I childishly felt tears threaten to well in my eyes. 8pm and I’d had it, I just wanted to go to bed and shut the door on the day. I went to get a cloth, swallowed back my indulgent upset and fed up feelings, and went back in and finished the story.

 

I went to give them the routine of “up high cuddle, down low cuddle, side to side cuddle” which tends to drag on and on, and is cute and beyond gorgeous any other well behaved day, and then my daughter started complaining about wanting more books and turned the lamp defiantly back on. I said Hunny, no, we’ve had our books it’s very late it’s time for bed. She started shouting “MAMMY NO YOU ARE A BAD MAMMY I DON’T LIKE YOU” I switched off the lamp in anger and said, “Don’t put me to the test today babe!!!!! I’ve about had it! Good night!!!!”

 

What a day. Not proud at all. 
 

D came home late and I think he sensed my knackered what the heck-ness and didn’t even dare ask. I said how was your day, he told me briefly then went to scrolling on his phone. I said, “Well, my day was chaos. The kids won’t do as they’re told, they’re mean as anything to bambino, and shout at me and won’t tidy up after themselves. I’m tired of it D.” He just said, “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

 

It irritates me when he gives me the brush off on harder topics these days. He’s stressed with work and doesn’t want the pile on of new problems, but I’m someone who needs to talk it out or I wake up worse than I went to sleep. 
 

I feel like same old all over again. Older kids almost from the get go mean as hell to our baby girl. D this time intervened early this morning, told our boy to go sit on his bed and come back when he can share and say sorry. But the cynical part of me knows it’s no good. It’ll just go on and on. They have tolerated her today after the talk down, but not said one word to our little squidge. My son and daughter were right tight knit as anything as babies and toddlers. I presumed it would be the same way. I could always handle two easily as well. 3 is turning out to be an awkward, slog of a number some days. Someone is always not quite happy. Someone’s game is always getting squashed, someone’s always interrupting. I tried to have my sacred bath this morning, my quiet time I refuse to let people burst in on, and my son flies into the room angry demanding to come in with me.

 

I get it, he feels rejected from yesterday, but so do I. 

I know I should know better, being the adult, but sometimes, as a parent, you just don’t actually know what to do.

 

I remember thinking of my Dads Mum, a tiny petite dot of a spectacled woman, here is a selection of five different homemade cakes for that day, who would chase my Dad and his older brother around drove to madness with a wooden back scrubber. I used too half laugh, half feel terrible about that story.

 

My parents came this morning. I needed a break and wanted to get some chores done, keep my stress levels low. My Dad asked how I was. I said, “Dad, where is that wooden back scrubber?” We all laughed. Honestly. Sometimes it’s not all sweetness and light and I don’t have a clue what to do about these niggles. 
 

I just want a seasoned mother of three plus children or something who can relate to tell me she understands, and that I’m not crazy, and that I’m not a bad person, and that she felt the same way some days. I appreciate the advice from mothers of one, but it’s just not the same. Mothers will roll their eyes and say oh! What a day! When their 18 month year old has been in a daycare from 8am till 5pm and they haven’t even seen them or been with them. It’s just not the same. 
 

I guess I’m missing the traditional gabble of women, housewives and homemakers with bigger families, who meet up whilst the children play around in the fields, and talk shop, and blow off steam, and drink tea, and sew a hem or clean the hearth. Y’know. I long for the long lost traditional woman. Where is she? Where did she go? I can’t relate to hardly any woman I come across. It feels so lonely and unusual. 
 

Everyone’s question is “What do you do?” And they mean what line of work I’m in. And I say, I’m a stay at home mum, a housewife! And they ask well before that? Or, when are you going back to work? Y’know, people are more than their degree. I choose not to do it, I got the grades, I had it laid out infront of me. I didn’t want that path, or not yet. I wanted to concentrate on finding a husband, making a home and starting a family. A true weirdo crime these days and something no one can wrap their heads around. They either see me as selling out “womanhood and progression” being “controlled and vulnerable” or “obviously too stupid to work”. These women berating me aren’t mathematical geniuses or surgeons, just marketing assistants or whatever, the world would keep spinning well and fine without their “amazing contributions to themselves and society”. 
 

This is where sometimes I think I just need to have been born about 100 years ago. My pale complexion, rosy cheeks, energetic but peachy constitution and red curls would have gone down well then. I would have been there in the wash room with the other women. Now where do I find myself? God, it’s sometimes bleak. Beam. Me. Up. 
 

I wouldn’t swap this for the world. My kids are well behaved, most of the time. Beyond great, and so kind. But behind closed doors they seem to have an intolerance to not getting their own way and their baby sister. Sometimes I think back to the days I envisaged at least 4 children. How I have been humbled to find out 3 under 5 is plenty enough for me!!!

 

Maybe trying to do anything all yourself without taking on help is just a waiting receipt for a burn out disaster. I am stubborn to a fault, and need to let go, or put my foot down. Not sure how to do either when it comes to the two older kids.

 

x

[mylolita]

No one can say sh*t until they’ve walked a mile in your shoes. 
 

 

No one knows what it is to be you.

 

x

 

 

[mylolita]

[mylolita]

Women:

Let It Go - Why It’s More Than Okay To Be Vunerable

 

I was 25, a year into being married, and stood across from my mother in law painting our vast bedroom in our newly bought town house. Our first home. And what a love nest it was. The boy has done good.

 

Comfortable silence, only the satisfying squishy sound of two rollers going through paint. I heard her in take a breath of courage. Maybe it was time for a mother in law-daughter in law cosy moment. 
 

“Just so you know, he’ll never change. Don’t expect him to do any housework, cook any meals. He’s just like his father.”

 

She paused. I was silent. We’d never spoken frankly before, even though I had known her for 8 years. To her, I was a very young looking timid thing who accepted everything that was shown to her and knew nothing of the real world. She was right, and she was wrong. Aren’t we all.

 

She went on. ”I often think if I’d been born now, instead of 70 years ago, I would have been the single woman with the career. I would have waited later to have children.”

 

I found out; years later, that her first baby had been a struggle, and my husband, five years after, had been a mistake she had been completely depressed over. She often would say, “I’m not a maternal type of person”. I always thought it was strange she never referred to herself as a woman.

 

I felt some kind of quiet outrage bubble up inside me. Another judgement passed down from the old, cranky and unhappy, her marriage sexless and at war for at least the last decade, me and my husband playful and over the moon with each other for 7 years up until this very point. Where was she going with this advice? Was there advice? What was this talk? Was I supposed to say oh, thanks for the warning, better divorce him now whilst the inks still fresh? 
 

I swallowed. I was, after all, just 25, and getting to grips with voicing my opinions. For a few years they would come out and shock everyone, but for the most part, a running commentary would only happen inside my head.

 

”Well it’s a good job I’m not one of those girls.” 
 

You could have heard a pin drop. The room was an echo chamber all of it’s own. 
 

She never offered me any relationship nuggets ever again. She saw us happy and passionate year after year, and I think that squashed anything else. She also expected me to naturally agree; as most women agree, that women shouldn’t indulge in that traditional role anymore, and that it is demeaning and insulting and even abusive, and yes, leaving yourself open to be left with nothing. Unsafe. And stupid. 

 

It set the scene for years of women who I would encounter who, when learning I didn’t work (or the question was, “when does your maternity leave end?”) would look baffled, or sorry for me, or plain shocked at the rarity of it all. I became some strange curiosity at best (she doesn’t work you know! Her husband buys her everything and she’s okay with it?!) to a symbol of “against the womanhood collective” and therefore a female enemy who had sold out her gender and turned her back ungratefull on equality to return to the Dark Ages of female oppression.

 

The one comment that always stood out, and was always said, like clock work (and always from other women, never men):

 

”You are leaving yourself vulnerable.”

 

What if he takes off? What if he dies? You don’t have any marketable skills? How could you provide for you children? How would you keep your house? What if he has an affair? Don’t you think you are being used? You’re not making a very smart choice. WHERE IS YOUR SAFTEY NET?

The obsession with taking as much risk out of life as you can is, after all, a purely female attribute. Men don’t tend to think this way, and are happier to play with fire and often invite risk into their lives. 
 

Women chase security, because it is instinctive for us to need it. 
 

Biologically, as mammals, we have always been vulnerable. In pregnancy, as the weaker sex, smaller, a dangerous point while we raise and look after young babies and children. We have needed men. We were vulnerable. And it was okay. 
 

Men went to war. Men hunted the big game. Brought the bacon home, literally. We needed a man there to protect our children and provide. It’s hard wired into us to reduce that risk, to protect our children in comfort and security as much as possible.

 

Now we girls find ourselves in 2023. We bring home the bacon. The army and the police protect us. Childcare is paid out, for the most part, our children spend most of their lives in school institutions and playgroups and nurseries. Where does that leave men? And where does that leave women?

 

My argument is simply this. I am vulnerable. I leave it up to my husband to provide. I do look after the children, all of the time. I need him. Without him, I am lost. But, my argument is, that’s okay. That’s more than okay. It’s attractive, and it’s natural.

 

The knight in shining armour doesn’t chase and slay the dragon for the girl who’s stood already at the deceased carcass, job done, to look at him like, “What’s your plan now, hunk?” 
 

Rapunzel needed saving, her beautiful locks just weren’t enough. It didn’t lessen her. It made her more. 

 

Men are hardwired for this. To look after the girl. To save the girl. To protect the girl. Take this away from men, and what is left for modern masculinity? What is left for the role of the man? Loading his half of the dishes on a Wednesday night?! 
 

When mammals mate, especially primates - the female finally submits by exposing a vulnerable part of her body to the male. The wrists. The neck. The other parts. I’ll let you guess. Why during passionate sex, does the man grasp the wrists, or tenderly hold or kiss the neck? Why does the woman, in revealing these elegant but vulnerable parts where blood flows through fast and hot, delight the man, and cause a protective yet sexy flutter? Why does it inspire carnal desire, yet tender care?

 

Modern women - reveal your wrists!
 

Being vulnerable is beautiful. Being vulnerable is attractive. Being vulnerable is feminine. Saying I need you is a thing of sacred adornment, it is not something to get over and eradicate. It is not something like not stupid fools do.

 

If you think you don’t need saving, you are wrong. For in having someone save you, you also save the other person. When they catch you, you also hold them back. 


So from the last Venus standing in her clam shell, wrists displayed in submission, palms turned out in question and invitation, I say…

…women - being vulnerable is not a weakness. It’s your super power.

 

x

[mylolita]

The only approval I need, is my own. If I’m straight with myself, the whole world is straight right along with me.

 

I recently heard someone say:

 

“When you go to war with yourself, you find a lot of peace.”

 

Your number one enemy is yourself, no one else. You either lead the horse, or the horse leads you. 
 

Physicality gives way to mentality, and then the mental work, gives way to physical work. Never seeming to do one more than the other. The weird paradox of an ENFP. 
 

x

 

 

[mylolita]

[mylolita]

Love and love alone will near get you through this whole thing. Music and art, will pick up the rest.

 

And don’t you damn well forget it girl! 

 

 

x

[mylolita]

Sometimes, we hate each other. Sometimes, we fight. Sometimes, we hurt each other. But then, we hold each other. We know each other. We need each other. We love each other, and the course of true love never did run smooth, as some writer once said! 
 

 

Yours, despite it all, 

 

Your Lo 

 

x

 

———-

 

Close your eyes, close the door 
You don't have to worry anymore 
'Cause I'll be your baby tonight 
Shut the lights and shut the shade 
You don't have to be afraid 
'Cause I'll be your baby tonight

Well, that mockingbird is gonna sail away 
We're gonna forget it 
That big, fat moon 
Is gonna shine like a spoon 
We're gonna let it 
You won't regret it

Kick your shoes off 
And don't you fear 
Bring that bottle over here 
'Cause I'll be your baby tonight

Well, that mockingbird is gonna sail away 
We're gonna forget it 
That big, fat moon 
Is gonna shine like a spoon 
We're gonna let it 
You won't regret it

Kick your shoes off 
Don't you fear 
Bring that bottle over here 
'Cause I'll be your baby tonight 
'Cause I'll be your baby tonight 
I'll be your baby tonight

 

———-

 

[mylolita]

Byeeeeeeeeeeeee-yeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

[mylolita]

It's absolutely crystal crisp beautiful this morning.

Bright wintery sunshine, hints of Spring trying to get through, with light snow floating down from a bluest of blue sky!

Magical!

I've got the fire blazing, my beeswax candles on. I snipped a mixture of sprigs and wild flowers from my little walk with the girls yesterday. They are spilling out of vases along the fire mantle, dining table, my dresser, even on the bath rack. 

It's a good day! A FINE DAY!

Life is romantic if you let it.

x

[mylolita]

Never makes me feel better, only makes me feel worse, wastes my time, regret it afterwards - but here we go again - LET US GET A HIT PIECE ON! STOKE UP THE FIRE! NO LIGHTERS REQUIRED!!!

I'm off the back of a couple of fantastic, weird, terrible weeks. I don't know what the hell is going on. I'm thirty three. What can I say? 33, 3 kids. Should live at 3 something probably. All the threes. What else is three? Don't know, nothing else. But it's like, this thing. I'm making it a thing. I accept that. But it's my thing. Watch out.

Social life has been swirling around, can't keep up. Can't keep up with my sons new social life since I started him in school. That's another story. Then there is my social life, with all these women. And wow, y'know, they seem to really like me! It's one of those. Here we GO! Here we go. It's only a matter of time - that's the jaded part talking - the cutesy sunshine and rainbows side goes hey, girl, listen! This time, people are always different. You can't judge. Let's see. It's gonna work out. Best friend in the making, right here. This is really exciting. 

I'm split both ways.

This drinks on yet another evening once the kids are in bed and I'm out in coastal wind stepping out with a silk scarf tied in my hair and some fine knit cropped jumper and a nice satin skirt and some towering heels and just, y'know, the most gorgeous wool lilac coat. You'd know there was a heaven if you saw it, I can't explain. It's just fab. Life is better with this coat. And it all was going okay until they mentioned politics. And they presume, as always, I'm 'One Of Them'. Y'know, one of 'The Good Guys', not the evil capitalist Himler reincarnated conservative bigoted racist right wingers. Couldn't be, because I look so sweet?! And, I do girls, I do. Honestly, they think they got the devil in disguise, Elvis style, when I in the most mildest, mildest way, state my politically conservative leaning views. And this is from an atheist libertarian littlest state intervention please bi-sexual don't care about the gays or what they do too much kinda gal. I'm really, honestly, the mildest sweetheart. But no. Obviously want to send everyone into the ovens and those two friends looked like they'd been transported back to the 40s and didn't know whether to pitch fork me, dunk me, or disown me right there and then. Again, I delivered it the humorous mild way. Heaven help us. 

Another disappointment. Another bunch of women who don't see eye to eye with me on nearly absolutely everything. Think I'm down trodden and a fool with no education. Because, of course, they're big boss b**ches, even though, their husbands all make way more money still than they do, and their jobs are useless and ridiculous and not that educationally heavy anyway. We're not talking about hardcore physics here, chemistry, engineering, biology. No. Just... "something in marketing". "It's a big deal". Hunny, the world will carry on spinning if you quit tomorrow, don't worry. But, womenkind are proud of you everywhere for "sticking it to the patriarchy", they are, really, shaking in their boots right now.

LISTEN. What on EARTH is every woman's OBSESSION with SAFTEY?! Everything needs a Plan B. A Plan C. A Plan flippin' DEFGHIJ bloody K and XYBCDEG!!!!!!!!! Because, obviously, men are scum and it's only a matter of time before you're high and dry and they die or leave you?! LOOK LADIES. I'm more masculine than any of you could even wish to be. I know you think you're the big shot here, shoulder to shoulder with all the guys. Men don't think like this!!! They aren't worrying about ooooo what if she leaves me! Oooooo what if things go wrong! OOOOOOO, where will I TURN?! They just take risks and GET ON WITH IT with the confidence and flare they will sort it out if, IF, s**t hits the fan. How about THAT one? How about, I have taken a risk baby, on love, and it's an evaluated, educated risk, and it's my risks to make?! And if it did go wrong, I'd sort it out?! Because I'm not some "Ohhhhhh but I need a million degrees to be SAFE and to STAND ON MY OWN FEET"! I'd get a degree because I wanted to officially expand my mind in some area. I don't need to work at the moment. My choice. Alright? Is that okay with you girls? Oh it's not. Look, rain check!!!! I DON'T GIVE A FIG.

So onto my mother in law.

D rolls over this morning as I'm getting up to start a bath running, and he casually says to me, "My Mum is coming by today with Aunty M."

The sun is blazing, it's going to rain for the rest of the week. I'm not waiting around for this hatchet job all day to turn up when she decides. He never told me. I don't wanna see her. I want a break and the kids to be outside all day soaking up this Spring weather. So, no. Just no. I'm in that mood.

He was disappointed in me. You can't cancel them! They're due! THEY both do NOTHING and have been retired for decades. She never sees the kids. It's a 25 minute drive. It's always, ALWAYS at her convenience, never mine. She sees no one. Complains all the day (oh HO HO HO! We have something in COMMON?!?!?) He says, you have to ring her up. I say, with pleasure, give me the phone. He's rolling his eyes. Not today. Just not today! I don't care!

A few weeks back, I was ill badly with sickness. Throwing up into the sink. Again, she hardly sees the kids, never babysits, never called upon for nothing. D calls her for me. "Lo is throwing up Mum, could you come over today help her with the kids, I really have to get to work?" Y'know what this b**ch comes back with? Pause... ohhh... I can't! I... have to walk the dog. 

Her husband, also retired, also doing nothing but being a degenerate miserable gambling addict, couldn't apparently walk their dog that they only take on the strangest little micro ten minute walks anyway. Which is why she is misbehaved and not handled right. I thought, damn you, I'll remember that.

I call her up. Ohhhh. Oh. Can't you do it? Really? I've arrange it? M can't come but I need D's receipts and I was going to come for an hour. JUST AN HOUR?! So I'm waiting around for her to come for an hour, hardly to see the kids, just to collect documents?! Y'know what! I delighted in her sighs and I just said I'm busy, we're going out today, and some other time. Didn't even re-arrange.

NO. 

I'm not working around people who don't give a fig! I'm just not! And everyone can have it! They really can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I absolutely hate these wild moods I get in where I'm just like, RIGHT! That's ENOUGH! SEE YA! BYE BYE! But I adore and delight in them too. It's like, suddenly becoming Jim Carey in Liar Liar. I just can't do it my love! I just can't anymore!

I tell you what, any people pleasing remnants are well and truly cinders in the fire! HA! I love it. I don't care! I just really don't! 

So I'm doing what I want today, for me, and the kids! And they're making their beds as well, by God, I told them that. I'm just not being treat like a slave maid. I won't be disrespected like that. I might do all the cooking and cleaning around here, and proudly, and happily, and joyfully - but DON'T TAKE THE P*SS OUT OF ME. And, thank you. 

This is my truth, b**ches! LMAO!

Y'know, they can all swing for it. Heaven help me at 35. 

My eyes are open. Wiiiiiiiide open. Trust me. I see everyones politics, on the main stage, AND in my personal life, and I don't give a HOOT BABE, cos TWO CAN PLAY AT THAT GAME! And I'm WINNING! So don't even START!

D was like, "Have you lost your marbles?"

I just said, "Yeah, think I have. Had enough."

He said, "Are you okay?"

I said, "No."

He said, "Well.... what's happening? What's happening with the kids and my Mum?"

I said, "She can f**k off, and the kids need to learn to tidy up after themselves. They're watching a cartoon while I'm getting ready. They need to give me a moment to get dressed. They need to behave. Your Mum can come when I'm ready at my convenience. It's not her way today, and it won't be ever again. MY DRUM BABY!"

He's shaking his head. "Can't you say anything nice? I'm not doing this today! I don't want to hear another word out of you unless it's positive!"

"I don't care D and I won't and I don't have anything GOOD TO SAY TODAY so that's how it is!!! IF YOU WANNA HEAR ALL THE NICE THINGS ABOUT YOUR MOTHER, HELL, GO TALK TO YOUR DAD!!!!!!!"

And, if you don't know, that's just a great ironic joke, because he absolutely despises his own wife.

And, there ya go. Tuesday morning. And, I just, don't, give, one, flippin', ripe, purple, juicy, well oiled, FIG!

LOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!

x

[mylolita]

If you read my post above the one above, it's like night and day. I am, probably, officially, crazy bi-polar.

I kind of enjoy it though? Ever actually spoken to anyone who's up and down? Don't kid me now, don't let them bulls*it you. It's quite a powerful state. You just, go with it, and often. Some other force pulls you along for one WILD RIDE baby! No alcohol or drugs needed. It's terrifying, truly, but on the flip side, breathtakingly beautiful. It's hot and cold, it's sweet and sour, it's magical and mundane, it's depressing and uplifting. It's mostly always exhausting by the end of any of it.

I don't care.

It's like, my bl**dy mantra today. Don't care! DON'T CARE! Tell it to someone who CARES!

Don't wanna be positive! Don't wanna like everyone! People can be s**ts! Alright? Ever thought about that one?! People can be amazing, as well. Oh boy, they can knock you out with how beautiful they can be. But sometimes, people can be hell on high water. Why do we take it? Have some self respect.

I just don't need anyones approval, and by God, I don't get it anyway! SO WHY VY FOR IT?! 

I'm basically throwing in the towel in that area of my life. Not that they win, no. I just, have other fights. This one isn't important anymore.

HO HO HO!

x

[mylolita]

We're on one, so we might as well, I guess it'd be rude NOT too.

Women don't like me. They just don't. 

They do initially. They think I'm interesting (gonna flatter myself here), maybe, unusual? Bit exciting. Had it said. I'm very generous, so it's always drinks here, come for dinner here, want to swing by here? Things are always happening, I host, casually and planned, all the time. It's a fun time. But y'know, it's an inevitable thing, with women. They end up either, being at war with me, or just plain outright hating me. 

Why do I always get on with men better?

School gates. New thing for me. Last time I was at any school gates I was 18 and D was coming to pick me up from college while my friends all stood and gawked at a shaved headed beefy 28 year old boxer driving off with me while they went home to eat what their Mothers had prepared them for tea. 

School gates went bye bye along time ago, it feels. And, the school gates were never for me, anyway. No gate is. Y'know what I mean? Don't hem me in. Motto. Theme in my life. Gotta go. Gotta be free. Free thinking, free speaking, free being, free moving. No gates. So long. 

I'm at these school gates nearly every morning dropping off my son and mingling and talking and we're getting invited here there and everywhere but, why the cold feeling? Why the... stand offish? I'm not sure. It's just the same old same old! But, funny enough, I'm not dragged into all their bulls**t between each other, as females do like to do, let's face it girls, they love the drama and the gossip and just can't help themselves getting into their little school girlie cliques! 

But the Dads! The DADS! The Dads, who don't seem to speak to hardly any of the Mums, are all for me! Okay boys!? What's goin' on? And let's not make it naughty. It's not that. Y'know what. The Mum talk - let's be real - is boring as f*ck. It's the most tedious stuff you ever heard. Ohhh the weather. Ohhhh little Timmy has had a cough since the 7th of March now and I went to Dr Sunny and he told me this but then we went back on the 15th and it still wasn't resolved and so and so then referred me to this department and... I'm deceased. I'm away somewhere else. Just thinking about how its inevitable we're all gonna die, and I'm wasting my 5 minutes listening to this. Sorry, I slipped. My consciousness departed off this MORTAL PLANE WOMAN. 

But the guys! We can have some crack! CRACK A JOKE! Heaven help us, I can actually crack a joke!!! And NOT talk about what cough the kids have! And NOT talk about the washing or how many chores or things I have to do today or about what activity or whatever they did last week! It's suddenly not tedious. And the undercurrent of judgement seems to have disappeared. I'm not getting this, "what am I dealing with here?" vibe. 

I went to an Easter event at the church, my son was singing. He's a cherub. It moved me to tears. But before all that, all these stupid women had grouped themselves into their little cubbies. And a huge woman who, we nearly bought her house, gave her the highest offer, but said this offer is only here if you accept it by tomorrow and cut out all the concealed bidding and what not, and got greedy, and tried to play us by having it both ways, and we said no, after she came begging back like, we'll take your offer! No girl. No. And this one is there cackling with another few who I always say hi too and always am more than polite too, one being my very own next door neighbour, another gigantic colossus with a down trodden apologetic husband who looks like he dare not breath wrong in front of her, turn their backs on me and IGNORE me on purpose. School girl stuff. Totally pathetic. I can hear them gossiping about some other poor Mum, probably. Some unsuspecting lady. I interrupt them and ask them something. They look at me like, how dare you?! We're ignoring you!? And I decide to just, play the game. 

I turn to the one who came back begging for our house offer. 

"Have you got settled into your new house alright?" Knowing fine well she struggled for months after to sell it and it's still going through.

"Nearly." Cold, forced smile. She literally turns her back to me and starts to talk again to the other women. One even gives me the teenage roll eye big fish eyes to another one of the girls.

"Oh, I see." I say. I turn back to face the empty stage. What a bunch of losers. A whole load of other Mums pile on in. Here we go, the cool group. They are ushering me towards them near the back, with a spare seat. Instead, I go sit next to a heavily pregnant Mum who is Spanish and everyone always leaves out.

"VERNOICA!" She has this very sweet, adorable, innocent smile on her natural face.

"Can I sit here? What a bore this is! When do the kids get in?! I feel like I'm about to burst into flames in this church! HA!"

We start laughing. I joke I should have got pro like the ones over there and brought coffee. The kids start to pile in. My heart starts to melt.

Classroom politics, and I'm not even in class anymore. Or so that's what I think.

You can't mess around though. They don't know me yet, but if they think they can intimidate me, or upset me, or make me feel like "Oooo they won't talk to me because I never bought your house and ended up buying a far more expensive one down the next road" well, apologies, you're in the wrong. WRONG! 

What a bunch of pu**ies. 

HA!

Chinless wonders.

The concert went and d*mn near broke my heart!

x

[mylolita]

_____

This is a man's world, this is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the train to carry the heavy load
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark

This is a man's, man's, man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Man thinks about our little bitty baby girls and our baby boys
Man made them happy, 'cause man made them toys
And after man make everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money, to buy from other man

This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing, not one little thing, without a woman or a girl
He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness, he's lost lost

______

As Marilyn once said,

"I don't mind living in a man's world, as long as I can be a woman in it."

______

Amen sister. 

I've had a few rough days with women. A few rough and tumbles. And, it's just disappointing, more than anything. To sit there, and hear them trash their husbands, over and over, for the most minor, ridiculous things. I never hear the men trashing their wives. I know it will happen, but women are very guilty of this - very, but don't have the balls to own up to their not so great sides. 

I was feeling all the feels about it. Turning it over in my head. James Brown, 'Mans World' came on by pure chance over the radio. I was cruising without the kids. It felt like the first day of Summer. I turned it up, near full blast. It put a lump in my throat.

I adore men. I respect men. I think men, lately, are having a really tough time of it. Men don't know where to go or what they're supposed to be doing with themselves these days.

It was always clear. Protect, Provide, Procreate. Now what? Talk about your feelings, whilst doing the dishes, whilst respectfully giving you three orgasms when you want, by watching their tone, by giving you space, whilst giving you freedom to work, but also working themselves and watching their kids at the same time, whilst also balancing everything, whilst giving you time, but giving themselves time, and watching their "aggression"? What else? What is their role, really, now? What is a woman's role? What we all make it, huh? And how easy and straight forward and uncomplicated is THAT for everyone to navigate! Not that we're all not a little bit lost at the moment, wandering around, swapped and reversed and intertwined and confused about it, pretending like we now have it all figured out because we're so much smarter and fair and better than the people that did things a certain way before us? We've got it all figured out, huh! We're in the right now! We can be smug that we're doing it the better, right way? We're correct now, huh? They just didn't "know any better?"

One day, I'll tell you what I really think. But, it's not for here. Not unless I wanna hit the wind in this online weird club realm.

x
 

 

[Jibralta]

23 hours ago, mylolita said:

I kind of enjoy it though? Ever actually spoken to anyone who's up and down? Don't kid me now, don't let them bulls*it you. It's quite a powerful state. You just, go with it, and often. Some other force pulls you along for one WILD RIDE baby!

I don't have massive highs and lows, but I did enjoy the swoon of a crush in my day. And I enjoy taking risks. I find the ups and downs enjoyable. But mine are like the kiddie rollercoaster lol. At least where emotions are concerned. At the amusement park, I like the ones that freefall 500 feet, spin you around, and loop you over and over and over at 100 mph.

[Jibralta]

23 hours ago, mylolita said:

we're so much smarter and fair and better than the people that did things a certain way before us? We've got it all figured out, huh! We're in the right now! We can be smug that we're doing it the better, right way? We're correct now, huh? They just didn't "know any better?"

Well, that's the big joke when every generation comes up. Whether it's race, gender, religion, politics... it's always the same!

[mylolita]

Social life has hit a boom the last month. I joke that I'm speed dating mothers. I've become smooth and efficient at The Number Get.

I tell you something though, this coastal town, as sought after it is, is full of the London types that moved and peg themselves as bohemian, or wanting a huge house with that country lifestyle feel they couldn't have had a hope in hell of affording in the Big Smoke. But with this, comes, I'm quickly finding, all the New Age Bullsh*t. I'm not one for it. I don't believe it.

Two great girls, perfectly lovely - having drinks late last night. I pick them up because I don't drink much and one glass of wine and soda does me most out nights, unless I'm feeling cheeky - rare when you have a 6am wake up call from bambinos no matter what or where you were or who you were with!

The conversation's going fine, nothings blowing me away but it's your usual jokes and chit chat and talk about town and the kids and gossip about the husbands. Then, one drops in that her house is haunted. 

"You're kidding me?" I say, really hoping, she is. Please. It's a joke?

No, in all seriousness, she's seen black clouds wizzing around in her bathroom (were you naked!?) voices, hand prints on her windows (you have three children - sure it's not just, like, them touching your windows instead of a supernatural entity cloud?!) 

Anyway, my mind went. So disappointed. You're sitting opposite two women who are highly educated and doing it for themselves and all this, and then at the weekend they are calling up some middle class witch doctor to light a bunch of sage and wave it around their newly renovated kitchen. Is it just me???

Why does this, again, always happen with women?! I never end up in this nonsense talk with the guys. Beam. Me. Up. 

What can I say? Maybe I'm just never gonna meet another kindred spirit that matches my little set of low high notes.

Disappointed. Low blow. We can do better than this. 

 

_____

"Don't talk to me, no, about people who are nice, because I have spent my whole life, in ruins, over people who were "nice"!"

_____

x

[mylolita]

On 4/12/2023 at 10:29 AM, Jibralta said:

I don't have massive highs and lows, but I did enjoy the swoon of a crush in my day. And I enjoy taking risks. I find the ups and downs enjoyable. But mine are like the kiddie rollercoaster lol. At least where emotions are concerned. At the amusement park, I like the ones that freefall 500 feet, spin you around, and loop you over and over and over at 100 mph.

This is funny Jib because I'm sick on rollercoasters - LOL! So I can't take 'em!!! So there ya go!

Maybe if I could do a sky dive or a race track or a roller coaster every few months, I wouldn't indulge my own emotions! All in your own control, no excuses. I've been more even keeled for a good few weeks, it's a nice break.

x

[mylolita]

On 4/12/2023 at 11:49 AM, Jibralta said:

Well, that's the big joke when every generation comes up. Whether it's race, gender, religion, politics... it's always the same!

Completely true observation!!!

I don't want to keep everything, but I love certain traditions and cultural rituals, especially if they are sweet and don't harm anything or affect any scientific progress or forward/free/open thinking. I realise that's totally debatable and depends on which person you ask!

x