Love and Marriage...

Setting aside the Christmas crap for a little while (fight postponed til we're both in a better mood about it all), we had an interesting discussion about the future this morning.

He thinks (and I can hardly disagree) that the twin issues of His family and us (not) having children will be the ones that will ultimately 'make or break' our marriage in the future. I was quite surprised by this, as I always think of myself as being the one that worries about the future, and He's always been pretty much 'live for the moment'.

As I say, I could hardly disagree, so instead we agreed that at the moment, when neither of us are that happy with His family, and neither of us want children, we should just muddle along and leave the fututre to take care of itself. Anyway, we've vowed to take a year off when we turn 30 and go travelling round the world, so we'll worry about nasty alien baby things and the nightmare of his clan when we return.

So, that gives our marriage another 5 years at least...

Deck the Halls with Barrels of Arsenic

Firstly, just a tiny mention that it is SEPTEMBER and therefore shops should NOT be putting up Christmas decorations, or selling Christmas food, or in any other way starting to blackmail us with a holiday that isn't happening for another three months, and which some of us don't give a flying fuck about anyway, except for the excuse it gives to get drunk with people we love. So it is therefore especially repellent that MIL has already started harping on about Christmas, and even worse, that He is endorsing it...

Let me offer a brief rundown of events in the yuletide period thus far:

When He and I got to our first Christmas together, we'd only been seeing each other for about 6 months, so we each spent it with our own families and spent New Year together afterwards. But by the following Christmas we were living together, so maturely agreed to take it in turns going to His family and my family. I selflessly offered to let His family go first (I didn't know them so well then...)

So we spent the day with Mars and Venus, 007 and Dollface, at their house, with MIL and a few others as well, and stayed over til Boxing Day. Didn't see my family at all until January. But you know, fine, okay, whatever. We all got drunk and had an okay time, and although it wasn't a patch on The Family's celebrations that I've grown up enjoying, it was fine.

Last year we got married the day before Christmas Eve, as you know, so although we technically spent Christmas with my family, we literally drove up on Christmas Day and then drove back to spend Boxing Day with His family, which actually ended up being MIL and the hideous Northern Relatives, who managed to be rude about the wedding on top of being a pair of tedious born-again Christians with about as playful a sense of humour as Stalin.

This year, not only are we supposed to be having Christmas with only teetotal MIL and His mentally ill aunt (who gets let out of her home at Christmas), but He wants us to stay over Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, then spend Boxing Day with His sister and stay over, and 'maybe' see my family before New Year 'if we can afford to keep the hire car' (which we have to hire to go to HIS family Christmas).

I am very tempted to tell him to stuff His plans up his arse, I'm going to my family ALONE!!!!

Fucking Christmas. Whole thing should be abolished if you ask me.

Mookmoo and Her Magical Hair

Afternoon all.

Nothing much to report about the weekend. Waiting for pay day on Friday so all quiet on the Mookmoo front. Probably the most interesting thing I can say about it is that I watched Practical Magic last night, which is not one of the world's greatest films, but has a distinction for me in that it was the film that inspired me to stop pissing about with short hair and to grow it long and keep it long, once and for all (I used to have a terrible habit of growing it long, then chopping it off, loving it for a week, hating it until it grew back, then chopping it again... and so on). As I actually have extremely long hair at the moment (and am loving it) the film (or rather, Sandra Bullock's hair) made me feel quite smug.

The only thing I don't feel smug about is the gruesome colour I'm currently sporting. It's darkest brown at the roots (my natural colour), dark golden brown for about six inches (the last dye job), reddish brown for another six inches after that (dye job before, plus a bit of the last one), and then going to a kind of dark gold colour at the ends (I was blonde three years ago). It probably doesn't look quite as bad as you're now imagining, but it's bad enough.

So... should I be a redhead? a sultry brunette? a golden highlighted beach babe?

Answers on a postcard please, or via email to mookmoo_ndq@hotmail.co.uk, or just drop me a comment below. I promise to take a poll and go with whatever colour gets the most votes. It's interactive fun, see?

Running Commentary

I love comments. Really, I love them. They make my blog a happier place.

But I really really really fucking hate comment spam. Not only am I not keen on inadvertantly advertising some dickhead's phony product, but there is something almost offensive about seeing my innermost thoughts bookended with adverts for someone's shitty sales blog.

So from now on, thanks to the human excrement who think spamming comments is a clever thing, you will need to do a word verification test before commenting.

I know it's a pain in the arse, but please don't let it stop you leaving comments. This blog would be a duller place without them.

Big love,

Mookmoo xx

Fast Forward, Stop, Rewind

So, up until five minutes ago I was feeling pretty positive. I've been looking into going back to teacher training to teach English as a Foreign Language, I've been writing again, and I've signed up to learn Russian from January (long time ambition, no clue why but I've always fancied speaking Russian. Probably a Bond girl fantasy thing).

But then He just rang to say He was going out after work again. Which is exactly what happened last week prompting the whole 'I am miserable as fuck and have no friends'.

Another Friday night in front of the telly alone. Fucking great.

Full Speed in the Wrong Direction

It's been a funny week so far. Work is completly insane because all the students are turning up to start their three years of hedonism, and we're here to help make sure they can do so as smoothly as possible (and start drinking as soon as they arrive). So far so good. Other than work, I've just been knackered, and feeling a bit ill and emotional. He calls it 'emotional flu', which is an expression I rather like.

I'm feeling progressively better though. Baby steps and all that bollocks. It's this weird thing that I've felt the last couple of years my life has been very 'temporary' - temporary job, location, house, in some ways probably even relationship. Then it's like I've woken up and thought "Shit, two and half years in actually a pretty long temporary phase, especially as it looks set to continue." And then I've freaked out.

Maybe a better way of putting it would be that I pressed the pause button, and forgot to press play again. And now that I have pressed play, it's a bit hard adjusting to life at its proper pace.

Broken Into Pieces

Sorry about the drunken crying thing. I mean, I'm not taking it back or anything, still feel exactly the same in fact, but it was a tad unfair. Especially to those of you lovely enough to email your concern. I have spent an extensive amount of time crying this weekend, but I'm a little calmer now so probably owe you all an explanation:

I don't have any friends in Essex.

There you go, the problem in a nutshell. I moved to this common chavvy little county with Him, for the sake of Him and His beloved bloody family, and unfortunateol assumed I would find it as easy to make friends here as I always have everywhere else I've lived. In fact, it's proved impossible. It's now two and half years down the line, and the closest friends I've got are in London, and I don't even have the cash for a bus ticket up the road, let alone to our nation's capital.

I don't have any friends round here because they're all either thick shallow bimbettes with skirts as small as their brains, or else they're perfectly nice, but have had the same mates since they were 11 and don't have any interest in making any more. Honestly, it's the most bizarre thing. I LOVE meeting new people, but apparently round here unless you've been through school with someone, they don't qualify for more than a smile and a nod.

Even with His friends, they're nice to me when I'm there, but they have never made the slightest bit of effort to get to know me as anything more than His wife. Don't get me wrong, they chat, and they invite us to things as a couple, and they're perfectly pleasant, but they have no interest in including me in anything unless the invitation is as His 'plus one'. The only exception is Nambo, and he's off fighting illegal wars at the behest of Shrub and Bleurgh for most of the year.

And so I am excruciatingly lonely. I suspect that if things go on like this it may even cost me my marriage. I am a sociable person woith no social life. It's pathetic.

-

I've been crying for about an hour, and drinking hasn't helped, and thinking about cigarettes hasn't helped, so maybe this will.

There is not one single person I could call right now. I know this because I went through my phone book as well as my mobile phone address book, and couldn't come up with even one name. All I want to do is hear someone else's voice while I cry big snotty messy tears down the phone.

I have gone so very very wrong somewhere. I am so lonely. I can't even begin to explain what it feels like to be this alone and isolated and unhappy. Do you know the last time I spent time with a friend? No, neither do I, because it's been so long I don't remember. I lost all my friends when I moved to this godforsaken common little corner of England, and I was so in love that I didn't even notice. I'm like the worst kind of sad bitch who abandons her friends for her man, except now I'm being punished in spades.

I am so miserable, so alone, and so lonely. I've forgotten how to have friends, how it feels to relax in someone's company and just chat and laugh and feel that warmth of human interaction.

Why did I ever agree to move here? Why did I put His wants and needs before mine? Why did I decide that His desire to be near his goddam family was more important than my need to be less than 50 miles away from the nearest person who cares about me, just me, rather than me as His other half?

Oh Christ, this isn't helping. This is just making it worse.

Vanity

Colours I might dye my hair:

Traffic light red

Dark cocoa brown

Mid brown with bronzey shimmer

Really dark red, like red wine

I am incapable of making a decision, so am stuck with boring hair. Sigh.

Pre Menstrual Psychosis

This month I am certifiably insane with hormones. I burst into floods of tears and clung to Him weeping about how much I loved him, just because he gave me a cheeky grin when he was working on the computer the other night. Oh, and then there was the Hour of Doom in which I insisted to him that if I ever go blind (long time Mookmoo's-greatest-fear) then I would kill myself, regardless of Him or anything else, because I wouldn't want to live like that. I think I might actually still feel that way, but not to the scary psycho effect that I communicated it to Him on Saturday.

I am officially temporarily insane.

The only saving grace is that due to an Electric Board Error in Our Favour we can collect £30 and go and buy fat food tonight, and I get sausage and mash for dinner. Hurrah!

The Weekend Starts Here

I can't wait til 4:30. I've had enough of this week.

He is meeting His brother on Sunday re the whole rude email debacle, and also has a doc's appointment this afternoon, so is like a cat on hot bricks, wound up and nervy. I, on the other hand, am feeling perfectly happy and calm in myself, but pissed off as hell at work, which obviously doesn't make for a harmonious mental state.

I need some time off, I really do.

Plans for the weekend... write, read, sleep, call some friends I've been neglecting.

Quite excited about weekends in October though. Lots of lovely big social events planned, including a supper party (hate the term dinner party - too formal) at ours, a leaving do for Mockley's departure to New York, and a wedding. Oh, and my birthday, but let's gloss over the terror of advancing years...

And one more thing: we are having a huge party in December for Xmas/our first wedding anniversary. I am going to make people wear posh clothes and drink champagne, whether they like it or not!

Bloody Mary Is Thicker Than Water

Well, He finally did it. After months of threatening to rip off Cuck's head and stick it up his arse (he has a lovely imagination, my beloved), He finally send the most apocalyptic of emails, the brotherly sentiment contained within being more of the Cain and Abel than the Chuckle Brothers variety. I think we could sum it up thus: "You are a selfish grasping twat who doesn't give a fuck about anyone except your spoilt family and your bulging bank account".

I am torn between cheering and cringing.

Friends Like These

While compiling the New and Improved Sidebar TM*, I realised that I've been rude and never properly introduced you to a lot of the people that I often mention in the blog. So here we go:

Family:

Him - He is my husband. He is not capitalised because He is god, but just because I didn't want to come up with a silly name for Him. He is generally rather lovely, the yang to my yin, the calm to my storm, but like all men can sometimes be a right royal pain in the arse.

Jellie - Jellie is my cousin, an all round goddess, and a fabulous blogger as well. You can read her blog by following the link in the New and Improved Sidebar TM. She is also part of...

...My Family - I've posted about this lot before. See the link in the New and Improved Sidebar TM.

His Family - ditto My Family above

The Girls:

Coxy – girlfriend of Sparky, total sweetie, and ever so slightly old-before-her-time.

Ellby – girlfriend of Monsiuer Coustard, total sweeteie, and ever so slightly young-for-her-age

LadyDi – I went to school with her, and she was the only normal person there. Now living in Scotland with MrDour, who never seems to talk. I just hope he talks to her…

Mockley – one of my favourite, most beautiful people. She helps run a pyrotechnic theatre company, you know.

Queen of the Irish – the girl responsible for introducing me to Him, and the most beautiful girl in Southampton. Not that she knows it.

Scarfee - work colleague, sociopath, and sometime drinking-and-shopping partner

Sweepy – owner of the longest eyelashes in the western world, and the sweetest temperament. Oh, and lots of shoes…

Skeletor/MsKidd – a girl I like a lot when she isn’t trying to steal my crown as the world’s best party hostess.

Thims - she's cool, she's a nurse, she moved to the South Coast. I still love her though.

The Boys:

Beano - ex friend, ex lover, see link in New and Improved Sidebar TM

Cliffhanger – Nambo’s best friend, another Royal Marine with issues. He likes to climb things. While drunk.

Dettori – the shortest Horseguard in the Household Cavalry (yes really), and possessor of an encylopedic knowledge of 60s music (despite being born in 1980)

Monsieur Coustard – professional clown, our Best Man, the definition of a Loaded reader.

Nambo - honorary big brother, Royal Marine, alternate-universe boyfriend, all round good guy. See link.

Ozzie – my lovely mate, except he’s relocating to New bloody Zealand

PianoMan – the tallest, thinnest, and loveliest boy in the world. Just needs to meet the loveliest girl in the world.

Signor Smarm – cousin to Him, a one man smarm offensive

Sparky – the most laid back man in the world. Lives with Coxy.

So that's pretty much everyone I think. Let me know if I've left someone out. I haven't had all that much of a social life over the last little while, but now that we have cash all that will be changing, and you'll be seeing a lot more of this lot. I think you'll like them. I do.

*Yes, I'm proud of working out HTML stuff. So sue me.

Editing

Hello dear readers,

The more eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed a few changes to the Diary. If not, may I direct you to the new and improved sidebar. You can view some of my favourite sites, refresh your knowledge of the original blog and some of the characters I write about, and send rude emails to people I don't like.

All part of my dedication to good customer service.

Big love,

Mookmoo xx

The Fugly Duckling and Other Stories

It may be time to stop dressing so much like a hungover student. Particularly at work. I mean, I love my combats and my trainers and my big fleeces that you can hide your stonking headache and bleary eyes in, but when you don't actually HAVE a hangover and are just a lazy cow, it isn't quite as acceptable.

I've been eating less like an eating-disorder afflicted teenager (binge-starve-binge-starve) lately, and more like a grown up, so maybe it's time to start dressing the part. I mean, I used to love clothes. Well, I still DO love clothes, I just don't like how most of them look on me.

Hmmm.

Something to think about anyway.

No Worries

I'm having quite a hard time at the moment. This is going to sound ridiculous, but having spent the past 11 months or so in a permanent state of worry and anxiety, I am finding it very difficult now that I'm, er, not.

I have nothing to worry about.

Seriously. Money is sorted now, bills get paid, and we'll gradually have more and more left over for fun. God, we've even started PAYING BACK our debts instead of just paying the minimum payments! Next month some money will actually find it's way into my savings account!

So now that I'm no longer panicking about money and running sums aound in my head 24 hours a day, I'm finding it impossible to relax. How does relaxing work? I think I came close for an hour or so yesterday when I was lying around in the garden with a few beers and a few friends, but it's been so long that I'm not quite sure.

Don't get me wrong though: I do LIKE not worrying. I'm just still learning how to do it.

Ms Monopoly

Last night He and I had the bright idea of playing 'a quick game' of Monopoly. Four and half hours, eights beers, a large bar of chocolate and two temper tantrums (both mine) later, I won! This would not be significant were it not the first time ever that I have won a game of Monopoly! (I used to play with DaddyCool - he cheats).

I am disgustingly and unattractively competitive when it comes to games/sports/everything, but I actually did quite well last night, in not being rude or insulting when I was doing badly, and not gloating too much when I won.

But I am secretly very very pleased with myself. (But don't tell anyone)

I Am Not A Freak

According to an article I read yesterday, my bizarre, highly emotional, love/hate, binge/starve, good food/bad food, good girl/bad girl relationship with food is actually a recognised condition called 'Disordered Eating'.

I am normal(ish) after all.

Which, interestingly, has led to me having the most normal 24 hours of eating that I have had in a very long time.