» Turning into your parents

I will not be like them.....
My relationship with my parents is fairly complicated, due in part to a fucked up childhood, product of a broken home yadda yadda yadda, but mostly due to the fact that they're both mental and not in a good way.

My dad left home when I was 8 weeks old, and was conspicous largely by his absence when we were growing up. The break up was as far from amicable as you can get and my mam and dad hurled abuse at each other via us for many a year afterwards. Bound to lead to productive, well-rounded children right?

Dad was, and still is, a borderline alcoholic who has no paternal instinct whatsoever, and thinks that children are an emotional and financial drain and not much else (fair play if that's your opinion but for fuck's sake keep it in your pants then!). Mam is emotionally unstable, and had a tendency towards all sorts of substances and men of varying degrees of dodgyness. Led to an, erm, interesting childhood.

Anyway, as a result growing up I wanted to be the exact opposite of both my parents, and spent a lot of time with my grandparents, living with both sets for fairly lengthy periods, but mostly my mam's mam. My nanna was an amazing woman, and I'm told I'm a lot like her, which frankly is the biggest compliment anyone could pay me. She was everything a parent should be in my eyes. She took me in numerous times, she made sure I had clean clothes and was fed and all the boring stuff. She made sure I did my homework. But more than that she was the only person in my life I absolutely knew I could count on, without a shadow of a doubt, no matter what. She has dragged me thorough every crisis of my life thus far (they have been numerous and legion, I don't do things by halves :D). She made me laugh, she made me cry, and she loved and protected me with a ferociousness I'd never before experienced.

Anyway, to get this back on topic. As I get older I realise that I am like my parents in lots of ways, much as it annoys the fuck out of me to admit it.

From my father I get:
* a tendency to drink whenever life pisses me off that bit too much, and not stop until something or someone forces me to.
* A love of reading (I remember visiting him when I was about 14 for the first time on over 2 years and he made me sit in silence for over an hour while he finished reading the latest Stephen King, twunt), to be fair the best thing he ever got me was a subscription to Brittania before everyone had the internetz and books were out of my spending power.
* Lots of my fav music (including but not limited to 10cc, Beautiful South, Madness, Led Zep, Bowie, Pink Floyd, any and all Motown and Northern Soul)
* My temper (tho I control it a lot better than he does)
* Sarcasm
* Hair that refuses to be controlled
* Exceptionally small ears
* A tendency to state the obvious, in a very patronising way
* A love of cooking, but not conventional cooking. The type of mess around in the kitchen chucking loads of stuff in a pan to see what it tastes like kind of cooking.
* I like James Bond, despite being determined not to.
* A love of cars. Damn not being allowed to drive!
* An intense dislike of my paternal grandparents that conflicts with an intense love of them. I've watched him battle with this as I got older and started seeing him again, and it fucks me off that I now have the same internal battle.


From my mother I get:
* My looks (my kid looks exactly like me, I look exactly like my mam and she looks exactly like her mam)
* A love of Scrabble and a dislike of tv
* Lots of my fav music (including but not limited to The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks, The Drifters, Erasure and other camp dance)
* A fair bit of emotional instability
* A metric ass-ton of guilt about the way the family situation turned out
* A whole fuckload of 'Why can't you be more like your sister?', erm cos she's a fucktard with less personality than the dog's last shite!
* An inclination towards befriending camp gay men
* A 20 a day ciggie habit, and in my misspent yoof a tendency towards a fair few not-strictly-legal substances (that's sorted now tho, I'm a good girl these days).

From them both I get a determination not to fuck things up for my kid, and to remember that above all else I am a parent and for at least the next 15 years there's a littley relying on me to make sure everything is ok. So far I think I'm doing pretty good all told.

The bad news for my kid is she's turning into me more and more by the day, from her love of Star Wars, to her flippant responses, to her crazy mind-of-its-own hair, and her total lack of subtlety or tact. She also seems to have inherited my incredible natural grace, love of reading (down to signs on buses and cereal packets ffs), intolerance of bullshit, and lack of any sense of direction.

The only thing I can't fathom is her hatred of cheese, weirdo.

Apologies for length internet peeps, I came over all Magnus Magnusson for a moment there.
(Mon 4th May 2009, 18:08, More)

» Grandparents

Grandparents rock..
Due to having shit parents my grandparents were pretty pivotal when we were growing up, from taking us on day trips and holidays when we were young, to making sure I went to school when I was a stroppy teenager.

My paternal grandparents are very traditional, grandad was in the RAF and then a trucker, nan ran a shoe shop. They don't believe in sex before marriage, divorce, homosecuality or foreigners. Grandad taught me about cars, lorries, sarcastic phrases and how to make stuff from wood and nails, nan taught me about cooking and sewing and clothes.

My maternal grandparents were less traditional, divorcing before I was born. Grandad was a bit of a 'character', he'd been in prison for small things a few times, and nanna was always telling stories about his crazy money making schemes. He taught me about betting odds, card playing, how to lie convincingly and rock music. He died when I was little, but my kid has a lot of his personality traits, which is infuriuating and amusing in equal measure.

My nanna was the biggest influence on me growing up, I lived with her off and on for years, and she is simply the most amazing person I've ever met. She is the only person in my life who was there for me every single fucking time it counted, and no matter what I did or thought or didn't do I knew she would always have my back. There's no denying I was her favourite, and we were so close we'd know what each other was thinking more often than not. She gave me the confidence to walk away from dangerous situations and a fucker of an abusive relationship, and the confidence to come out to my family almost 10 years ago. She took no shit from anyone, but gave exactly what was needed at the right time. She died 5 years ago and I miss her every single day.
(Sat 4th Jun 2011, 18:05, More)

» Customers from Hell

I work in technical support.....
....so most of our customers are idiots.

Worst are the ones who have a tiny bit of knowledge, but think they have a lot, or the 'IT consultants' who don't know what basic commands are.

My fav response to these guys is to say 'you're paying for this call to Technical Support, please let me give you Technical Support sir', which usually shuts them up. :)

After 100 calls a shift I often wonder how some people manage to make it through a day such is their apparent stupidity.
(Thu 4th Sep 2008, 17:29, More)

» Kids

Evil kids
I'm the middle child in a family of 3. All 3 of us are fucked up in our own little ways, but that's for another QOTW LOL.

We were evil children. We looked gorgeous but we must have driven my poor mother crazy through our childhood years.

A few examples of our evilness:

* My sister and me used to wake up really early in the morning, go downstairs, into the kitchen and mix anything we could find into a huge mess on the floor. I'm talking flour, milk, eggs, butter and the like. We did this every morning for about 8 months (despite the child-proof locks and daily punishment).

* We made my mum coffee once, she thought we were being nice. It must have been a rare moment. Until she realised it was made with Turpentine Spirit.

* My brother used to listen in to my mum's phone conversations, and then repeat whatever bad things she'd said about my uncle/auntie/gran, whenever said uncle/auntie/gran came round to ours.

* We were very good at destroying any adult relationship she may begin, with alarming speed and accuracy from a very early age.

* Our dad was a tosser who never came round to see us, or buy us anything, but whenever my mum told us off we'd say how much more we loved him and wanted to live with him. That must have hurt.

There are hundreds more. Suffice to say we were not the angelic children we looked like.

I doubt my mum reads beta LOL but I feel bad for the things we did as a kid, it must have been tough. I have a kid of my own now, and it's hard enough when they're fairly well-balanced and do what you say most of the time!
(Tue 22nd Apr 2008, 20:52, More)

» Iffy crushes

Not me, but my missus
My other half has some proper dodgy crushes.

I like curvy and/or posh women, so most of mine have been said (Dawn French, Kirstie Allsopp, Supernanny etc etc). Sarah Palin gives me the ladyhorn though.

My mrs though has shite taste, such as Denise Welch (mouthy geordie bint off Loose Women, Benidorm etc), Miranda Hart (unfunny, freakishly tall run-of-the-mill tory resembling a horse), Diana Vickers (skinny, flat-chested x-factor reject) and for some inexplicable reason given she's as gay as the day is long, Gary Barlow.

Least I know she won't leave me for someone fitter than me.
(Wed 12th Oct 2011, 12:01, More)