HELLO OUT THERE!
I'm used to making my opinions public. I've had two of my diaries published as books and I do write a v famous advice column for my school mag (it had mega press coverage), but this is the first time I've gone electronic. (Usually I delete everything by mistake.) So I'm a bit nervous. But there's a universe waiting to hear what I think. So here it goes! (Note to You: If you've been up a mountain in Kathmandu or something and have never heard of me you can go straight to my Christmas letter to get caught up.)
Marcus and I were invited to a mega New Year's Eve party a mate of his from school is throwing but the MC and Buskin' Bob were off out with the Gruesome Twosome and Justin had somewhere to go so we decided to stay home and have a quiet night, just the two of us with candles and our youthful dreams. Then the Mad Cow broke her hand when she tripped over Lucrezia (no one knows WHAT she was doing on the floor) and Buskin' Bob whisked her off to the hospital, leaving US with the Hospurettes. Then Justin changed his mind about venturing forth and decided to stay home and cook beans instead (which, apparently is a tradition SOMEWHERE) - even though he's never attempted to cook anything that he hasn't incinerated. Then Nan and the Vicar turned up because the Eco Warrior had rung them from the hospital and they wanted to be on hand to cheer the MC up if she got out of Casualty before the new year. Then Sigmund rang to see if he and Duck Dog could come over because he and Brandy Snap had a fight. I said he should stop on the way and get some provisions since Marcus and I only got enough food etc for two. I said to Marcus that if he wanted we could still go to the party after all, but Marcus said he didn't see any reason to risk being run over by some drunk driver when it looked like we were having a party here. I said did I really have to remind him that MOST ACCIDENTS HAPPEN IN THE HOME? He said that's what he likes about me, that I always find something to laugh about. Well you have to, don't you?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
Disha and I were in a reflective, philosophical mood today as the New Year approaches. We talked about the responsibilities of growing up and how much debt we're going to be in when we finally finish our educations. And then we got on to THE FUTURE. Disha said it's going to be up to OUR generation to sort everything out. I said you mean the constant warfare and the starvation and the genocide and the polar bears losing their habitat, etc? She said yes. I said it sounds like a v big job to me. Disha said well someone's got to do it.
Christmas was quite an occasion of domestic insanity, even by our standards! Brandy Snap argued with everyone! She started with the Vicar by saying that religion is the cause of all mankind's problems (the Vicar said that mankind is the cause of all mankind's problems). After that, there was no stopping her. SHE WAS LIKE A WOMAN OBSESSED!!!!! She even got on Sigmund for never being able to find his keys. She said it was a demand for attention. I said of course it's a demand for attention, if somebody didn't help him find them he'd never be able to leave the house. Only one person didn't laugh. Justin, Lucrezia, Marcella and I all took Duck Dog (wearing his Christmas antlers, which he seems to be quite fond of) for a walk straight after lunch before she got to us.
I know what you're saying. You're saying, 'You and Justin did something together besides FIGHT? You don't mean Justin Bandry, do you?' I know. I reckon it's a proper Christmas miracle. Marcus painted this really brilliant picture of Justin being all chummy with the Zapatistas from one of Justin's five million photos he took in Mexico, and on the back I wrote: Some day this will be worth a fortune... Consider us square. And Justin LOVED it! (Well, he loved the picture, and the poem made him crack up!) My presie from Justin was CANCELLATION OF MY DEBT!!!! I couldn't believe it. I thought Nan or the Vicar must've had a word with him about the true meaning of giving. He said no, he reckons he's never going to get the money back anyway so he might as well let it go. And then we HUGGED EACH OTHER!!!! (Which is the first time that's happened since I was four!) By the time we got back from the walk Sigmund and the Stepmonster were gone. Apparently she had a migraine! I said, well she gives everyone else a headache, why not herself? (Not to sound bigheaded, but I REALLY AM hilarious!)
This is the card Justin made for the MC to send to EVERYBODY we know. I wouldn't want you to miss it!
[Click image to view large version]
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!!
Marcus and I went with Nan and the Vicar on their annual peace vigil at Parliament Square (which is also the site of our FIRST KISS - me and Marcus, not me and Nan or the Vicar). Personally, I don't really see the point - things keep getting worse, not better - but Nan says HOPE is what separates humans from every other life form. I said maybe that's because we're the only ones who really need it.
Marcus has his own family insanity to deal with tomorrow so he came back to mine for a pre-Christmas celebration. It was all v jolly. (It's worrying, but the Hotspurs and the Bandrys all do really like him - and even more worrying that he likes THEM). I spent every penny I'd saved on a set of brushes I knew he wanted. (He was so thrilled he kissed me in front of everyone!) He gave me this tres cool silver dragon ring. I said what's this, then? He said it was a ring. I said I'd worked that out for myself, what I was asking was what it means. He said it means he thought I'd like it. [Note to Self: Ask Disha if she thinks he said that because it's true or because he was too shy to declare himself with everyone sitting around watching him and stuffing mince pies in their faces.]
You can't imagine how difficult it is to CREATE when your house is full of young Hotspurs. Marcella's stopped crying all the time, and has gone back to talking all the time instead. And Lucrezia's just Lucrezia, (which is like saying that a monsoon is just a REALLY BIG STORM). I guarantee you that, if William Shakespeare had had to work with that lot around, today we'd all be saying that the greatest English dramatist was Ben Jonson.
Sappho, Mags and the Germ came tonight for our Solstice Celebration. Mags said that even though they're all unrehabilitated consumers, she'd rather spend Christmas with Mags' relatives than with Brandy. (They've already had words, and they only met the once!!) I said that Sappho better watch herself, she'd just expressed the majority opinion. I'm on a roll here with making people laugh. Maybe I can earn some dosh as a stand-up comedian.
Sappho and Mags loved the painting Marcus did for them (he copied it from one of their wedding photos). They're going to frame it. I said what about the poem on the back? Mags said she didn't think Mr Yeats would mind if it wasn't on display. (I knew I should've gone for something more obscure!)
The Germ liked her picture (her larking about with all her stuffed toys) and she liked the poem (You may be short and you don't really talk, but you'll get bigger) - so much that she tried to eat it
Bono won a court case over some woman who had a hat of his in her closet for the last twenty years. You wouldn't think he'd need another hat (and that he'd be too busy saving the world to even remember it), but there you go. There's a woman in America who's suing the Rolling Stones for $51million for cancelling a concert and making her waste all this money on travel and a babysitter etc (the paper didn't say where she travelled from or who the babysitter was, but I'm guessing the Himalayas and Britney Spears). And celebrities are always suing the tabloids and getting tons of compensation. If only I could think of someone to sue, my financial problems would be over!
Had another go at my poem for my potential Stepmonster.
There once was a woman named Brandy
Who thought that all people are randy.
But they can't face that fact,
So they pick up an axe...
And ruin everything for everybody else.
Disha said it was still way too hostile. Marcus said wasn't the last line meant to rhyme with the first. Decided to go for arbitration and showed it to the MC. I make her laugh a lot, but not usually because I've done something right. She said she thinks it's brilliant. But that I shouldn't give it to Brandy. I should give it to Buskin' Bob. Preferably on Christmas Eve. This could work, since I couldn't come up for a poem for him either.
Now I'm the one who's becoming OBSESSIVE. I just can't come up with a poem for Sappho and Mags. I find them tres inspiring as people (you know, in a take-no-prisoners sort of way), but not as muses. Maybe that's the nature of poetry. I know Walt Whitman wrote a poem for Abraham Lincoln, but mostly poetic inspiration seems to come from people who broke your heart or are going to break your heart eventually, not people you really respect or anything like that.
Disha thinks my poem for Brandy's a little hostile. I said it's meant to be.
I truly am an untried genius!!! I've been having a real struggle trying to come up with poems for Mags and Sappho and Call Me Brandeis. And then this morning I woke up with one for Brandy practically written in my head!
If you marry my father
Your name will be
Brandy Bandry.
Think about it.
Sigmund rolled up with Call Me Brandeis last night to discuss the details of the anti-Christmas. There was a flutter of tension when she refused to have soymilk in her tea and sent Sigmund out to get her the kind with the pesticides and hormones in it. There was another flutter when she asked the Mad Cow why she always mispronounces her name. (She thinks it's because the MC is jealous of Brandy's relationship with Sigmund. As if! The reason the MC always mispronounces her name is because it's so dumb. Another reason is that we all call her Brandy when we talk about her, so the MC never remembers what her real name is.) Tension started palpitating when Brandy agreed to bring a few things for pudding and said she could pick them up from M&S. The MC said she couldn't (M&S being amongst the thousand of companies we boycott, of course). Tension mounted even more when Brandy had an argument with Buskin' Bob about the value of NGOS (you know, like the one he works for!!!). Then we got hit by the tsunami of tension when she started analysing why Buskin' Bob has such a negative attitude about everything (you know, shampoo, the multinationals, governments, politicians, cars, the slaughter of innocents, etc). She said that often obsession and fanaticism stem from sexual repression. Buskin' Bob said that the only thing he was repressing was an urge to pour her real milk over her head. Sigmund got all protective of Brandy, and then the MC got all protective of the Eco Warrior, and before you knew it my parents were screaming at each other like they were still married. It almost made me nostalgic for my youth!
Wrote my first poem for the Christmas presents!!!
My Nan and the Vicar
Wherever people are fighting
For freedom and justice
There you are -
Being hauled off by the coppers.
I just hope Marcus paints a picture that does it justice.
So far I've had as many ideas for making some dosh as there are trees in the desert. Less. It'd be all right if I was someone like Wayne Rooney or Courtney Love or that Jade person from Big Brother who thought that East Angular is in Europe and that Rio de Janiero is a footballer - then I could just write a book. (Or get someone else to write it for me.) But nobody's going to want to read about MY LIFE. Sometimes I have a hard time keeping up my own interest in it, and I'm the one who's living it!!!
Have got to come up with some way of making more money or I'll never have ANYTHING new for the rest of my life. I'll be this old lady with grey hair and wrinkles and arthritis and all, and I'll still be wearing all the clothes I'm wearing now. I'll look a right prat shuffling off to the Bingo Hall in skinny jeans and platform shoes.
The Mad Cow, Buskin' Bob and Sappho are right: Christmas is a consumer bloodbath. Or at least a really heavy storm. You can't pick up a paper or switch on the telly or log on without being bombarded with ads for the perfect gift. If (like myself!!!) you spend every minute of your life working, studying or dealing with people who are totally insane, you wouldn't even know that half these things exist. A cup with a space at the bottom for your biscuits? A remote holder that looks like a cat? Stools that look like dice? Fake crows? A pepper mill with a light in it? (Who thinks up these things? Why don't they have anything better to do like end war or something of that ilk?) The worst thing, of course, is that I CAN"T HAVE ANY OF THEM!!! Not that I feel any overwhelming need for a fake crow (or a real one for that matter). But I did see these boots in one of the weekend mags that I would give my first-born for. I practically got down on my knees and begged the MC to get them for me. I said I'd never ask for anything else for as long as I lived. She said she'd heard that before. I tried to reason with her. [Which shows that despite the way life treats me I still have a positive and optimistic nature, since reason has never been known to work before.] It didn't work this time either. I said I hadn't had a new pair of boots for over a year, and SHE said she was proud of me! I said I didn't want her to be proud of me, I wanted her to buy me a new pair of boots. She said once I pay Justin back all the dosh I owe him I can buy them myself. NO, JANET THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS!!!
It's true that Marcus can often be tres unreasonable. And that he only has the one eyebrow. And that he likes Marmite. And there was the time he took me for a curry and ordered the destroy-every-taste-bud-in-your-mouth jalfrezzi to impress me and nearly choked to death. But he does have some good qualities. He suggested that we collaborate on our Xmas presies for my CONSTANTLY EXPANDING family. He's going to do small and appropriate watercolours for each of them, and I'm going to write a small and appropriate poem on the back. Even if I keep the poems down to a line or two it's pretty labour intensive, but it's cheap. Marcus is providing the paper.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. You'd think it was one of those gloom and doom Greek blokes who mulched round telling everybody that you couldn't count yourself lucky till you were dead who came up with that line, but it wasn't. According to Buskin' Bob it was Mrs Thatcher's favourite economist. I don't have the foggiest what he was on about (the Eco Warrior did try to explain it, but you know what its like when he starts banging on - it's like listening to four radio stations at once and they're all dead boring), but if you ask me it's true. I mean, think about it. For every good thing that happens, something bad is right behind it. Your mate takes you out for this real splash out lunch, and just as you're about to thank her she says she needs you to donate a kidney or something. So here we are in December when I should be looking forward to a brief respite from the stress and endless slogging of classes, but all I can think of is CHRISTMAS. It kills the joy. In other people's homes, Christmas is a time for guiltless gluttony and greed. In mine it's a time for Sacrifice. MORE SACRIFICE!!! Nut roast. Homemade presents. And the whole lot under OUR roof. Sigmund's even bringing the dreaded Brandy Snap with him. I don't know why. Nobody likes her. (Call Me Brandeis is one of those people who knows how to do everything better than the person who's doing it. And she's ALWAYS analysing everything. Why did you say that? Why don't you like that? What did you mean by wearing blue today instead of green?) Not even the Vicar like her, and it's his job to like EVERYBODY.
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