My 100 Things

If you read my fifty things last year, yeah that has been cobbled into this list. These days I'm more brave, or today I am anyway, so this could turn out to be one of those disappearing posts.

1. I am an oldest child, only daughter, Aquarian Metal Rat and a 22.
   
2. My first name on a psychic website was Mousey Pendragon and I picked it because I am quite nervous about my own abilities to flame roast other people, so it seemed to fit.
3. My second name was gifted and it was Raven, and it made me laugh, see description, its a surgical bird.
   
4. My current name is Idano, because I don't, but I don't go in the sites any more.
   
5. On the Homeworking Forum I am Millysoo, a Spoonerism
6. My second job was at the BBC in Chiswick, West London
7. Wednesdays we used to go to Television House and blag our way in with the ticket holders to be on Top of The Pops
8. I met The Jam (all 4' nothing) in the BBC Club bar on the same night as BA Robertson (7' something). The little ones had bigger egos, aint that the way.
9. My best friend at the time taught me how to give the wrong phone number when drunk
10. Her name was Karen Pratt, but she pronounced it Karin and I used to call her drive-in-fanny, but never to her face. Prat is UK slang for a CU-next-Tuesday, so is fanny.
    
11. My first husband kept calling me a stupid F-ing (select farm animal), so I took the Mensa test. I passed with IQ 160, top 1%, for all the good I (don't) put it to.
    
12. He left 6 months later and never came back, so being good at stupid puzzles has its perks after all.
13. My nose is broken - he did that and other things and for about the last year or so I lived in fear of him; I was in that situation where keeping my mouth shut was marginally better for my health that showing him up by trying to escape.
    
14. I used to go down his pockets, but only to collect his petrol receipts etc, he was a motorcycle courier and never paid any tax. Not that he gave me any money either. I was too scared to tell him I had envelopes full of receipts just in case.
    
15. He got more and more into drugs, kept kilo slabs of leb in the house knowing I was terrified to shop him in case I lost the kids. The amount he smoked in the house, I was sure it would turn up in my bloodstream and put me in question too.
    
16. One time he lost it and scared the kids. They went outside and came back with a lump of mud as a gift for him. They had found the bastard's dope stash and I had told them it was daddy's special mud (I mean, what can you say?) so they thought mud would make him happy. It made him worse.
17. One time he picked what he thought were magic mushrooms from the council grounds round our flat. He was wrong, and he ate them fresh. He spent a week in bed looking very grey and weak but wouldn't let me call a doctor. Part of me hoped that would be his last mistake and I shocked myself by cheering up at the thought of his death.
18. I got sterilised thinking I couldnt cope and was a lousy mother, when after he left I found out I was only a very depressed mother. For a while the kids and I were the three musketeers and it was wonderful. I got a reversal after my second marriage.
    
19. It took my daughter ten years and a change of area to tell me he had abused her, so I am one of those mums who never knew - I was even relieved to leave one of them with him whenever he volunteered, because I assumed that if he had one of the children to look after, he would be behaving himself and not dealing dope or trying to cheat on me.
    
20. It seems he was telling her that if she told, she would come home from school and find my face blown off with a sawn off shotgun, at the same time that I was in Mrs Persil la-la land and teaching the kids that mummies and daddies tell each other everything. So it was a mess.
21. He was eventually arrested, but my daughter, by then a teenager, was still too scared to go to court. I don't know if he got on a watch list or not and that worries me for his new family.
    
22. He had started priming our son too. All those years later I had to go through these huge pennies dropping, like my five year old daughter being terrified to sit on Santa's lap, and her four year old brother worrying that he was gay. They had always given such plausible reasons, that I hadnt been able to see what was under my nose.
23. I requested counselling, but got to the assessment interview and was pronounced too stable to qualify under the NHS budget cuts - they only help you round here, if you are in danger of hurting yourself or others.
    
24. Kick-self thickens the skin. Wanna call me names or throw rocks at me? Be my guest, I beat you to it. I can also sit in any shit with anybody because I don't 'do' emotions when all hell has let loose. Its not strength, its self preservation.
25. Come to me and go 'aww' at the wrong moment and I am likely to short circuit. I never let anybody in or even close when I am in crisis. My confusion (rather than any pain) is sacrosanct, because I only feel safe and comfortable if I am alert and empathic when dealing with others. If you want to help me or make me adore you, hoover my floor and answer my mail, so I can work things out on my own guilt free. Make the tea.
26. I cannot sit and watch someone else be upset, I would move heaven and earth to take a bit of the weight off them.
27. I am hypersensitive to selfishness eg those people whining on about their tax dollars around Live8 and I am prepared to believe I overreact, not that I intend changing.
    
28. The Queen Mother, I believe, described the first law for a Lady as 'never complain, never explain'. I think I like her very much, she sounds like she was a real gumboots girl. That may turn out to be another good reason for removing this post or simply letting it fade into obscurity.
    
29. It turns out that ' the man' also used the same terror tactics to buy drugs down the pub with the kids in tow. Behind my back he used my baby boy as a tester, to see how fast he got stoned and what the quality was; thats another thing that only came out when we moved away. That is possibly why A has ADHD. His serotonin levels are screwed. The only up side is that he is incapable of being deeply affected by the other things his dad did.
    
30. I will be angry to furious about all this for the rest of my life, wrong things stay wrong. I have forgiven him, however, and helped my kids to do the same. Pity is a good place to start - the poor b****rd has some eye openers coming when he hits judgement day and gets to really understand what he's done to other people. All that torture in a skip load, on the head, in one go. Wailing and gnashing of teeth are a horrible side effect of anguished guilt, and eternity is a long time. I wouldn't wish that on anyone no matter how scummy.
31. We have a joke when we pray for him, that if God answers and softens his heart in this lifetime, he will have to spend the rest of his years with a big sign on his motorbike top box - "If I've ever met you - Sorry"
32. He always called me frigid bitch because I wouldnt smoke dope, nor even get drunk in his presence. One time he mickey-finned me in the company of his mates, thought I was out cold on the sofa and started slagging me off. Apparently I set him straight and told him some home truths, in Welsh, which I don't speak, but it freaked the guy who translated for me and a couple of the others, who just wouldn't come round any more. After that he called me Gwendolyn meaning Welsh Witch, but I took it as a compliment, which annoyed him even more. Hey they were all spaced, so maybe God just got me a reputation that helped, whether it happened or not.
33. When he left, his drug use helped. I was able to lie to the kids that their daddy loved them really, but the naughty medicines made him be bad and he couldnt help it.
    
34. I had to do ballet when I was only 2 1/2 because the docs said I was going to end up with one leg longer than the other.
35. We visited a teacher at one of her shows and saw all the girls on stage in fancy tutus. I thought I had gone to see the fairies.
36. I reacted badly to the scarlet fever jab and mum had to tell me I had to stay indoors or I would go to see the angels. Tell a two year old the angels are outside and see how hard it is to keep her indoors.
37. The jelly was nice, it was all I could eat for a while, but it was the special fancy glass moulds - the individual ones. I was special.
38. My youngest memory is sitting up in my pram and cutting the top off my bottle teat with a pair of scissors, I can even describe the room and where I was parked.
39. Before I was six we lived in a two-up two-down cottage and my second youngest memory is chasing my dad's bare butt round the tin bath in the kitchen, trying to talc him, because in my world, bottoms always got talced after a bath. After that they got a latch on the kitchen door.
40. Nan's cottage round the corner had a cooking range, which I loved, and her Singer treadle sewing machine, which I couldn't leave alone. I sewed the needle through my fingertip once. Its mine now, she promised me that day that when I was old enough to use it sensibly, I could have it.
    
41. My old Welsh Nan tried really hard to teach me some old Welsh poetry, but she died when I was seven. I used to hear her when no-one else could, and go downstairs to tell mum that Nan wanted her. We were all in the same house.
42. Nans biggest message to me was that the point of having green fingers is not to make them greener, but to get on with the gardening. It took about forty years to really take on what she meant.
    
43. I got into psychic sites for a while because nobody had taught me which way up to hold the spiritual trowel, but I entered with usual cynicism and tested everything.
44. I run a mile from people who spout on about fairies or reincarnation or aliens from Pliedes, or who want to be the centre of attention just because they have a shred of gift.
    
45. My daddy's an orphan from Willesden and one day I'll turn that into a joke C&W song.
46. We think his heritage was Russian Jewish, via North Wales.
47. My husband has just found out one of his great grandmothers was Jewish - father Abraham's grains of sand and all that.
    
48. When I was little, Southall park was full of lions, in my head. I liked them and was apparently always pointing them out. I wasn't so fond of the crocodile under my bed.
    
49. I used to wake up feeling like my bed had just landed on the floor wonky, it felt like the last leg was hitting ground and the bed shook (or I jumped).
50. I loved going to sleep because of the dream tunnel. It was just like the one on The Time Tunnel, black and white swirly, except the stuff that flew past me in the walls sort of got there on its own. (We're still talking childhood here, people.)
    
51. I got scared of demons at about 11, gave my cross to my teddy bear and performed an exorcism on him. I still kept him locked in the airing cupboard at night, just in case.
52. I would feel too guilty to sleep if I could see all my dolls eyes and they were sitting up when I was tucked under blankets. I regularly used to fall out of bed because the dolls had got 98% of the space.
53. That was good practice for marriage.
54. The best way to walk on grass or indoors is barefoot.
55. I love old buildings and the vibes off the walls and furniture.
56. Lewes College has giggle walls - the whole atmosphere changes at the precise point that the new corridor walls attach to the ones that were part of a nunnery in the 14th and 15th century, but I didnt know that, I only got told when I remarked on the clearer, happier air.
57. I took up and gave up astrology and tarot in my late teenage. I gave up because people have these invisible rings through their noses and its too easy to pull them along, and to get power crazy.
58. My dad and I would play ESP games (Uri Geller was the craze then), we would predict playing cards and draw copies of each others pictures. It always worked so it was 'just one of those things'.
59. Dad could stare at this one little thermometer and make it read a higher temperature.
60. He used to take nearly empty marmalade jars, top them up with hot water , and put them outside the kitchen window to attract wasps away from the house.
61. I used to sneak outside with a lolly stick and help them climb back out.
62. My worst childhood nightmare was being in scary war games, and realising it was safe, that I could walk between front lines and not get hurt. Nobody would talk to me because they wanted it to be dangerous, so they refused to believe me.
63. The other weird dream was water. You had to live in the water or out, not both, but I found out I could move between both worlds and that the corpses in the water werent really dead, but nobody on either side would believe me or come with me.
    
64. My best childhood dream was flying, low and fast from a running start, skimming the pavements, twisting, looping. Maybe it was more like swimming in air.
65. I have spent precisely 50% of my life so far as a parent.
66. The thing I miss most about being single is being able to chuck all my cards in the air and see where they land, just for the hell of it. I dont believe in stereotypes or half the invisible social walls that others believe in.
67. The thing I miss most about living in London #1: City streets in the pre dawn, no cars on the road, peace. Concrete by dawn light is beautiful and so is silence in a city.
68. The thing I miss most about living in London #2: being able to dye my hair on a regular basis without looking like a cross between Wurzel Gummidge and horsehair sofa stuffing, the sea air is too salty and squeaky clean; maybe I just need a layer of pollution.
69. I would hug a tree cheerfully, but only if I didnt think anyone could see me.
70. I would climb a tree, but only if I thought I could get back down again.
71. Teenage angst led me to time how long it took for wads of cotton wool dipped in TCP to numb my wrists. Once I knew opting out wasnt impossible, I was back in control.
72. I have never learned to drive.
73. I have never been to Wales even though all my family comes from there.
74. I havent had a week away on holiday (barring visiting my mum) for twenty five years.
75. I have never been on an aeroplane nor further abroad than you can get by ferry.
76. I have never had a passport, last time I went to France for the day they were still using those one-day things you could pick up at Victoria train station.
    
77. I live very near to two major leyline crossings.
78. I read stones, keys etc and sometimes crystal shops have such piggish vibes I get dead arm and have to go earth to a lamppost.
79. Pretty much everything I write bypasses my front brain and goes from inception to fingertips, which can (ought to) involve a lot of reading back.
    
80. I am the same in an argument and my conscious mind can sit back and watch - so I surprise myself with the things I dare say and the things I remember.
81. We all remember every single thing that has ever happened to us - its all there, the problem is accessing where you filed it. My trigger for perfect recall seems to be defensive disassociation, which is rather handy, actually.
82. I love sleazy! My favourite shudder is currently provided by Rhys Ifans, the Welsh, Y-front wearing loony from the movie Notting Hill. His latest performance in the new Oasis video for The Importance Of Being Idle is umm, delightful. Phwoar, its all in the eyes, guys; well that and the intelligence and intent behind them.....
83. I am quite lascivious on the sly, really.
    
84. I love my second husband very, very much and as the saying goes, I would consider murder but never divorce. I am slowly perverting him, in a nice way, which is tremendous fun. I wouldnt want anyone heavily into S&M etc - too boring, it would feel like you werent enough on your own, like there had to be 'equipment' to make things saucy.
85. I used to pray for God to make my husband a good man. He answered my prayer in a way I wasnt expecting - he gave me a different husband. Thanks, God!
    
86. He asked me to marry him the second time we dated and I made him wait. I only said yes months later on a tube train to London, just past Greenford, I think, when my two kids turned to him and asked if they could call him dad.
87. I tell him I got shanghaied into marrying him because of that.
    
88. 'I' didn't marry him - we did. The kids went round telling everybody that 'we' were getting married, meaning them too.
89. He was real dad and the other one was practice dad (not a real dad at all.) They said so.
90. I write lists all about me, that turn out to have a lot about other people. I think that speaks volumes to how I rate myself.
91. One chunk of hair in my fringe, right at the top of my head, has been silver since I was 30. Its getting wider now and I have given up dying it.
92. I like it, I want long, flowing, curly, silver hair.
93. It would be nice to shape up a bit so it has the kinky leather sci-fi effect rather than the 'granny with pruning shears and a brick in her handbag' effect.
94. My mum learned to drive the Green Goddesses in the war. I am proud of that. She and dad were both in the volunteer fire service out of Acton Station.
    
95. She was a land girl in Norfolk and kept dealing with animals when she came home. She was late for her first date with dad because she was seeing to a breach birth on the cattle farm at the back of St Bernards, the mental hospital in Hanwell.
96. Dad fell in love with her, he said, when he saw her up to her armpit up a cow's bum. He got his best civvies covered in cow muck trudging across to find her, which is why, she says, she fell in love with him too.
97. I'm bloody lucky, I come from stock that values muck & laughter. No fainting floras.
    
98. I would have been landed gentry (haha) if Grandad hadn't lost the Welsh farm in the crash and moved to Southall in search of work.
99. I wouldn't have been landed gentry if his big brother had survived world war one and Grandad had been able to finish University instead of being pulled back to run the farm.
100. I don't care! I am where I am and what I am, and thats all good.