Wise words and hairdryers

Recently I started to use a hair dryer for the first time in my whole life. I’ve never thought I needed one, and assumed that there wouldn’t be much difference in the end result, whether blow dried or air/towel dried, as it’s always been in my case.

But! The other day I fished out the hair dryer I was given for Christmas in 2007. I thought I’d experiment. I blasted my head with hot air and in less than five minutes it was bone dry. Not just that, but it was nice and move-y. It swayed and was lovely and swishy. I was shocked and annoyed with my stupid self. I wished that I could have run back to my 17 year old self and launched myself upon her, before she painted 40% hydrogen peroxide onto her ‘ginger’ hair and left it in for 20 minutes longer than the longest recommended time in order that all the ginger was definitely bleached out.

Oi! I would scream. Don’t do that because it will buggar up your hair for two years, all during university, and a lot of it will fall out in about two days time and then you’ll panic which will cause you to fiddle with it even more and loosen extra follicles. Then, depending on your take on things, you will lose 60% of your already fairly low self esteem and go out to the dingy student union and snog someone with an ACTUAL CHEEK STUD.  As if that’s bad enough, teenage self, yes, to add insult to injure-hair, it’s another 12 gosh darned years until you discover the hair dryer, and by brushing it wet you are causing MORE DAMAGE!

I can imagine the look teenage me would give sensible, flat shoe wearing me. I practiced it on my Mum a lot. I think that would encourage further nuggets of future wisdom:

STOP COOKING EVERYTHING IN 6LITRES OF VEGETABLE OIL! IT”S NOT NECESSARY! And whilst I’m here, don’t go to the Watersplash during the month of June 1999 during your ‘surfer cool’ phase because your boob pops out and you don’t notice until a man you’ve never met points it out and then assumes it’s some kind of contemporary come-on and sticks around for 40 minutes, assuming further that your type is hairy, unkept, unwashed and unpleasant smelling. (Fair enough, he may have seen any number of my ex boyfriends of the era).

That’s just for starters. There is so much more I would love to say to her. Who wouldn’t want to check in on their younger self and make a few tweeks? Ed and I discussed this in the car the other day. If only we’d met about three years earlier we said, things would be different.

Well yes, I’d probably be a lot older than my years, battered for double the time on a daily basis with ‘Kez! Watch this’! and ‘Kez taste this’!

‘What is it Ed’? ‘

‘Jellied eel’.

‘But I don’t like jelly and I don’t like snakes’

'You’ll love it! Try it, just try it, it's amazing'… etc. Eel is ingested. Gagging ensues, followed by 5 minutes of bad language.

Ed would probably not have gone to Uni and undertaken a degree in Animation (essential when working in the telecommunications industry) and I would almost certainly have not gone through my back catalogue of emotionally unbalanced man-childs.

I’ve considered this since though, and rejected it totally. I couldn’t have met Ed when I was 23; I was  not in a great place and neither was he; he used to have his eyelashes tinted and still wore shell suits and there are many, many other reasons why we would have been completely unsuited. And who knows, had I actually started to blow dry my hair all those years ago, perhaps my wobbly path to Ed would have wobbled off track completely. And despite the eel enforcement, and his other traits, most more irritating than an itchy jumper, put straight over wet skin, which is wet with sticky sea water, I'd far rather have naff hair than even think about that. 

Polygamy, by Kelly Williamson

Ed’s brother James recently made the wise decision to move to Jersey. He’s 40 next month and it was time for a rebirth, and where better to do it than in our spare room on an old mattress. It was a tough decision to make, to leave behind the green trees and tropical climes of Slough, to cancel his thrift and to wave goodbye to the M25. But with some gentle persuasion from me, on an hourly basis since last Christmas, he finally, wearily, handed in his notice and took the plunge. Good old James. He had at last realized that I don’t hear the word ‘no’.

I was very excited to welcome James into family life at ours. It evoked a homely, housewifey flurry in me and since he’s been here I’ve started wearing an apron when I cook, and doing an awful lot of soup. And a cake (see Facebook page for evidence).  I spoke of packed lunches, bracing walks and endless games of Scrabble, winding long into the winter nights. I meant it at the time and still do, although none of those things are likely to happen whilst X Factor is on. As far as food and entertainment is concerned, until Christmas, it’s every man (and baby) for himself.

James arrived 2 weeks ago and some surprising things happened. The first surprising thing was that within 48 hours of being here he’d broken out in an all over body rash. His eyelids blew up and he spent a further 48 hours itching his entire body and swearing a lot. I’d just bought a new, more purse friendly bulk box of non-bio, called ‘Superbrite’, and we’ve realized that it’s cost effective properties make James’ delicate epidermis quite angry.

Here he is, resplendant in his pinny.

But the second surprising thing, the most surprising thing is this- James has become my other, and frankly in many ways better, husband. Allow me to present some examples:

In the mornings before I go to work, James says things like this: ‘anything you want me to do today?’ and ‘just leave me a list of jobs and I’ll get them done before you come back’.  Yesterday morning when Ed was still on the night shift and Sonny had been screaming for most of the night, pre warning me of the sickness bug he was about to get, James said this ‘you go back to bed, I’ll look after him for a few hours’, and this morning, after Sonny had been sick 3 times in 2 hours and I’d changed 2 sets of bed sheets within 15 minutes of each other, James sterilized the entire kitchen and then went to the shop for milk, bread and FLOWERS FOR ME. I didn’t even have to ask! 

Local women readers: it might shock, but James is single. That’s right, unbelievably, despite his caring nature and multitasking ways- see photo for unstaged proof- this example of ideal masculinity is sans date. In his own words, ‘chuck my mobile number on there. Let’s see what happens’. I won’t do that, but he is of course contactable via this website, and I look forward to meeting my new sister in law soon!

Happy X factor

KW. 

Something serious ...

As I get older (I’m 30 next year. Cheques can now be made payable to ‘Mrs Kelly Williamson’.) I get more and more scared about the world. If it’s not economic collapse, it’s an earthquake, or predictions about the end of the world (Friday apparently. And yes, I am about 5% frightened) gun culture, no jobs for the next generation, no jobs for our generation, the lack of trust in the government, rebound recession and so on and such like. But the one thing that scares me more than anything else (apart from the end of the world) is this: kids.

Actually, writing this, I’m already wondering when you stop being a kid, and therefore stop being a thing of terror and a nightmare to behold. I think probably about 27. Personally that’s when I started to budget (badly) and buy things like furniture polish. Basically, I became responsible. But during all of my kid years, although I had no money and dusty sideboards, I would never, ever have considered smashing up a shop and nicking trainers. At school I’d hardly look a Prefect directly in the eye, and I only answered my Mum back on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, and alternating Tuesdays. And every bank holiday.

The point is, I towed the line, for the most part. I did start smoking because it was cool, and I’ve downed more Merrydown cider than could have been good for my 15 year old liver, but I always, always buckled down at school, had ambition, wanted to do well. Does it sound old and crumbly of me to think that the world now is filled with apathetic young people who think that the world owes them a living? And if a job isn’t handed over on a silver plate, it’s someone else fault?

Apparently, some looters during the August riots said that this was the reason that they emptied out their local corner shop. Because the government wasn’t supporting the younger generation.  This is just inconceivable to me.

It’s not just this though, that makes kids terrifying. I think the Internet is mostly a force for bad. This year I’ve read about teenage suicide more than I have ever before, and the reason is often cyber bullying.  Bullying in any form is hideous- I remember being bullied when I was 12. It only lasted about 2 weeks and it was never physical,  but it was one of the worst times of my life. I definitely did think about not being alive at all. I also used to wish I were our next-door neighbor- she was a lady of about 60 who had a small dog and to me, the best life imaginable, because she wasn’t being bullied. I was terrified to go to school and in the end I did the unforgivable and went to the teacher. That stopped it, although it didn’t win me any popularity points- not that I ever had the capacity to be awarded any! I was always a bit of an outsider at school. By bit, I mean lot, actually.   

I never had to deal with having an entire Facebook group dedicated to hating my guts though. Most of us earthlings are insecure, and although it lessens as you get older- a bit- it never goes away completely, does it? When these girls were calling me names, nearly 17 years ago, I used to get a shrinking feeling, as if my arms and legs were being pushed up into my body and my organs were squashing together. I can still get that feeling now occasionally, and then it brings back the feelings I used to feel as a kid. For just 2 short weeks. Imagine what it does to someone whose name is a source of ridicule on the public forum that is Facebook.

I’m scared of kids. I’m scared of the world I’m bringing my son into, and the choices he might make. Parents always talk about 'the wrong crowd' as if they were some lesser known alien sub culture; who would ever know that it consisted of their own kids?

I’m not scared though, of the upbringing he’s getting and I know he’ll feel love and support, and be taught respect and trust, from me and his Dad and until the day we die. And as a parent, I guess that’s the best you can do.