My Totally Arbitrary Run-Up To You-Know-What Rules

This post is sponsored by cookies, office tea and the amazing chocolate brownies this place makes.

I am currently finishing off the one I started yesterday. Not sure what that tells you about them.

So this weekend (yes, there was a week in there too, but I went to work and it was stressful and worky and really not the thing to tell you all about, so let's jump to the wochenende, svp) I did many, many things. I danced 4 days out of 5 in as many different pairs of ill-fitting dancing shoes, and have somewhat crippled myself.

I wore the dress.

And I didn't even fall over it once!

Even more adventurous, as far as I'm concerned, was the need to wear a stick-on bra underneath it. Living on the edge, me. But all was well, and I apologise for the over-share.

I had two lovely consecutive evenings of dancing and it was lovely. I did a lovely little girl's first ever dance with her. I just wish the country was closer together and I didn't have to go back to the day job on Mondays. I stayed up too late putting the world to rights. I went out for a huge lunch immediately followed by a wine-tasting. I went home and crashed out and slept for the rest of the day. It was a good weekend.

We went to a garden centre in search of doughnuts and found only minions instead.

They were doing a fairly hilarious photoshoot with a cheeseplant.

I've been keeping myself busy enough to not really have taken any of it in, but it appears that in some corners of the world, "Christmas" has begun. This is both silly and inevitable. Today we had a conversation in the office about how the boss is away and would it be nice to have decorations up for them coming back, but oh-no that would mean putting them up in November. The moral dilemma!

Which got me thinking about what the rules would be if I was the one writing them. Which I'm not, except this is my blog, so I am.

These are my Christmas Rules.

They're not in order. They're possibly even quite contradictory. That's me for you.

• If it's November, it's probably not Christmastime. 

November is many other other things. You could, for instance, join the many people who use the month to write a novel, or grow a moustache. I've tried both, with only moderate success at either. In an imaginary world where I make the rules, I'd say keep it under wraps till at least December.

• Phase it in

Let it creep up on you bit by bit, or we'll never make it to January. The Advent candle and the Advent snowman with all the pockets are allowed out. The Tiny Wise Men start journeying around the house (we have to get a compass out every damn time to remind ourselves which way is east). The tree's not allowed up till SUSCDF* has happened, at the very earliest. 

• And even then, if you're going to try and get a head-start, please be subtle about it.

I can totally see the benefit of starting early, spreading everything out and not having to panic or go over-budget. Heck, I have even tried it some years. But this year I haven't, and it makes me feel a bit crap and behind when I find out that someone else has practically got the turkey in the oven already.

• It's probably okay to call it Christmas.

Even people who ain't so fussed about the Baby Jesus probably enjoy the holiday and the Strictly Come Dancing special.

• We each only have so much capacity for "Christmas-ing"

This is my logic on the matter. If you start trying to feel Christmassy too early, you'll be fed up of the whole sha-bang before the schools break up. I have this notion that if I try not to think about it for a good chunk of December, then by the time the real thing comes round I'll perhaps be in the mood.

• It's okay to admit it all gets a bit too much sometimes

Christmas is stupid. It makes people into absolute desperate idiots. 

• Embrace the Christmas Jumper

With one caveat. One each will probably suffice. I like to think it's ok to inflict my Christmas jumper on people only once or twice. So it gets to come to work once, it goes to Church once, it goes to each dance class once. I get to show it off and be proud of my handiwork, and no-one gets too fed up of the hype.

Glass of wine not compulsory, but...

• In all things, pace yourself

We're celebrating many many things here. This is one complicated holy-pagan-traditional-commercialised-family-winter festival thing we've created for ourselves. All we really understand any more is that we have to eat and drink a lot, see a lot of people and try and be nice to each other. Eat slowly, drink slowly. Talk slowly and you'll take longer to run out of conversation. I have found, in latter years, that a good way to retain that warm fuzzy feeling and remain reasonable personable for an extended period of time is keep myself mildly intoxicated. YMMV. However, this year there will be children and driving. I'm going to need a new plan.

• And remember, everyone likes socks, Tesco is open on Christmas Eve, Tesco sells socks. 

Ergo, everything is going to be all right.


See ya!


*The Scottish Universities Scottish Country Dance Festival, which often involves a last minute dress-making panic and a good deal of organisation.

Trestle tables and Sewing Machines

This might have been a post about dress-making, but I haven't finished making the dress yet, so that's probably not going to work. 

This is a shop-bought dress that is about 8 or 9 inches too long!

/

Crazy, right? Pretty soon I'm just going to chop an arbitrary amount off the bottom and hope for the best. There's a lot of hoping for the best involved when I get the sewing machine out. 

Going to wear it on Saturday though, so it'll be finished pretty damn soon. 

This has been a week where I have done and thought about many little, totally unconnected things, that I will struggle to sting together in to a continuous thread of a thought process. Hey ho, I'm off out committee-ing any minute now, so piecemeal stuff-I-did-this-week it is. 

I went dancing

Lots and lots of driving was involved, and it was all lovely and worth it. This year's newbies, who I met about half an hour before we started dancing, have learned the ropes in next to no time and were shiny and coped beautifully. Next weekend's adventures will be somewhat different - no recaps! Eek. 

I drew some of the pictures I promised you all for last Christmas. 

I even sent them off. These having now made it to their new and rightful homes, you guys can have a butcher's. 

I'm particularly proud of the cat.

There are two or three others that I actually drew last year that I've been a bit, well, shy about since. It being a bit juvenile to post a grown adult a picture of a stickman that you drew, and all that. I hereby resolve to get over that and send them to you anyway. I even bought stamps and I can nick envelopes off L. If you requested a stickman at about this time last year, heck, even if you didn't, please pm me your address. 

I did wedding maths. 

I actually quite enjoy logistics and planning and stuff. A bunch of us are all going away for a weekend's holiday in February and I'm already bouncing off the walls with excitement about all the things I might get to come up with. But weddings, well, they're a bit more... involved. I'll get a handle on it soon. I'll have to. Dear Lord, I need the sleep. 

Last night I went to bed, lay awake for half an hour, and gave up. I got up, made toast, and googled stupid things like the size of a standard trestle table (6'x2'6"), what is costs to hire tablecloths (and boy are there choices out there), and how big a badminton court is (20'x44'). I then worked out just how many people you could seat, at standard trestle tables, in many different combinations and configurations, within the footprint of a standard badminton court. To scale, almost. 

Version 1, all things will change. 

Next up, off to plan more things. 

Till next week, here's a picture of me in my top hat. 

Which I will wear next week when we go to see Bellowhead!

My Selfish Priorities

I got all deep last week, and you guys all came out with many lovely things. Thank you.

Some of you asked about what happened to the original, uncut version. Well, it's gone. It taught me a lot about what my go-to expletives are, and I'm not sure if I like them. Maybe I'll invent some new ones. Draft number one featured a number of invitations to stick it where the sun don't shine, which I removed when I thought again about how it's Autumn and I live in Aberdeen, and how that's not going to be very difficult at all.

It turns out I'm not the cold, heartless ice queen I might like to think I am, and that all this stuff does actually get to me in the end. Trying to plan this thing I keep coming back to this notion that it has to look like a wedding, in order to convince people that it is a real wedding, not a "wedding" or a pretend wedding. And then one of my dear kind friends is good enough to remind me that it doesn't matter what other people think. That catches me off guard, and in the end, it turns out that, dammit, it seems I do care what you all think.

Buzzfeed thinks I'm hopeless and loveable, which must be true on account of the flawless scientific methodology employed by internet quizes. So perhaps there's hope for me yet.

Today I printed out my work calendar from here to Christmas. I got a marker pen and scribbled down all the things we have planned between here and there. I am going to have to be Sociable Me. She can only come out for a few hours at a time and then I end up extra sleepy, but that's fine as long as I'm prepared for it. Six dances in five weekends. Part of me feels like that isn't even really trying and I could probably manage a few more. This is how I burn out and fall over. I shall endeavour to go to the things we have planned, but do so with minimal skiving.

Why am I telling you this? There is a point I am trying to come round to, honest. One reason is that you should totally come to these dances and dance with me. The other reason is so that you know the reason I will be crap at Christmas shopping this year. This is it.

 My Totally Selfish Priorities:

1. Going dancing
2. Dressmaking (because going dancing naked is frowned upon)
3. Sleeping so that I actually make it to Christmas
4. Hanging out with people
5. Christmas shopping

Apparently the world is full of people panic-shopping already. Screw that, I have a plan.

There are better plans out there but this is mine, and I've got one so nerr.

Everyone that gets presents still gets presents, I'm just narrowing down the choice. If you are a habitual present-receiver, you can have your choice from the following list of options. 

• Slippers. Proper fluffy Grandad ones.
• Novelty pyjamas. There is little place in this world for serious pyjamas.
• Succulents. Or cactuses. Your choice.

• Theatre vouchers, with free babysitting where relevant. Cat's don't count, they won't get taken off you if you go out and leave them for an evening. 
• Gingerbread dinosaurs. You can stage your own version of Jurrassic Park 3 in which the protagonists wear only buttons and end up hiding in a gingerbread house which is being attacked by a sugar-crazed diplodocus. 
• A framed picture of the tiny squirrel. 

Those are your choices. If you don't tell me which, I will probably default to the squirrel picture and you'll have nobody but yourself to blame.

Probably Not Going To Hell

This weekend I taught a two-year-old to blow out a battery-powered candle. Absolute comedy gold. Then I gave him my phone and he took 42 selfies of just one side of his face. Kid's going to be a genius. Cows say "moo", sheep say "baa", Baby Brother says "waaaaaa" and Daddy says "sausage". So there. Now you know.

So, erm, the rest of this week's rambling is a bit heavy and a bit wedding-based. I've broken it up as best I can with photographs of squirrels, but it's still about God and sexuality. Here's a link to a comic I quite like (only for the grown-ups) if you'd rather have something different to read instead. This oughta get it out of my system, and I'll endeavour not to mention it next week.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you a small rant about how sometimes girls marry girls and the world is still turning. 

This getting written tonight so that I can put it down in writing, then close the computer and stop going on about it. Some time next year I'm going to marry L, who will then be my Wife. And I will be her Wife. Simples. Thank you and thank you again to all of you who were congratulatory and excited for us. We had hoped that it wouldn't be the case (or at least if it was that they'd keep quiet about it) but there was always a good chance that we'd come up against some opposition. And there is. Some disquiet from a couple of people around us about how we'd quite like to get married, and they'd quite like us not to, on account of neither of us being a bloke.

My Grannie was a big fan of the old "If you can't say something nice, shut up" phrase. I gave her far too many opportunities to use it, no doubt. It's something I try and remember, often about ten minutes after I've said something I shouldn't have. Sometimes "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" just leads to a lot of awkward silences.

This is where I struggle with not being a nice enough person. It's not possible to say "get over it and stop being such a big old meanie" nicely. Or sensitively. So I have to try and work out what I would say if I was not such a cow. I wrote all of this nonsense on Sunday, and have been attempting to soften it ever since. All the penises have gone, for starters*. 

#1 We're not that important, but this is important to us. 

In the grand scheme of things we are two tiny people, doing a thing that affects absolutely no-one else. I'm the only one who has gone and promised to marry L, and vice versa. The result of us getting married is that we'll wind up married. Even if I wanted to, I'm not about to bring about the downfall of civilisation. The flip side of that coin is that it's my freakin' wedding and my freakin' marriage, so please understand if I get a bit sensitive about it. 

#2 You are important to us. 

I appreciate that your faith and your spiritual struggles are important. Just, maybe I/we might not be the best person/people to help you work them out right now. There are probably more impartial people out there. Go for a nice long walk and remember that thing Jesus said about loving everyone. Remember that bit where he didn't list all of the possible exceptions where you don't have to bother.

We will still want you to be there whether or not you totally "approve" or not. 

#3 We're human beings, and we really quite like you.  

Feel free to remember that you actually quite like us too, the lines in your 'love the sinner hate the sin' seem to have run in the wash. We will make one hell of an effort to stick around and still love you in spite of the aforementioned differences of opinion. Please take us not disappearing from your life as a big ol' sign that we're rather fond of you even so.
  #3.1 'Love the sinner, hate the sin' is bull.  It's not in any Bible anywhere and it's just plain mean. The Christian equivalent of, "I'm not racist but...". 

#4 There are 4 degree certificates between us in this house. 

We're not idiots. Not all the time anyway. We're Christians, who are about to wind up in a same-sex marriage. A marriage, you could call it. Believe us when we say that we have done the reading, and the theologising, and the praying, and all that jazz. In our Bible God is a good guy, love is a good thing, and everyone gets an equal shot at being happy. 

#5 We're going to be civil-married. By the state**. 

Even if we take the view that we can't be certain What Jesus Would Do, he ain't involved in the paperwork. 

#6 Then...

...Once we've been Legally Wifed, we'll head up to our Church, our own Church, where every Sunday we belt out ancient hymns at half the recommended tempo and I only really pay attention to the children's address, and our Minister will ask God to bless that legal thing we just did. Accompanied by as many of our friends and family as we can persuade to be there. Ask. There's your word. Ask. We will ask God if He'll be so kind to bless us, and our relationship, our little family, and our crazy decision to love each other for the rest of our darn lives. It's up to Him whether or not he does that actual blessing and bestowing of grace and happiness and fluffy happy wooshies. We ask nicely, He decides. We'd love it if you'd join us for the asking nicely bit. And if you're standing there praying, "Dear God, would you mind not blessing these people because I think they're probably terrible heathens" then (1) God help you, and (2) you'll be outnumbered, but (3) we respect your right to pray that, just don't tell us that you did.

#7 If you are married, you don't get to tell other people that they can't be. 

Or rather, you're being damn cruel if you do. It's like saying, "Hey, there's this awesome thing that I've got here. It's pretty damn good. Oh, you want one too? Well, no, you can't have one." Because some lovely people passed a lovely law last year, and now I'm not a second-class citizen any more. Please afford me the privilege that you've always had.

#8 Your children are impressionable, their sexuality is not. 

Being in the same room as a gay person will not make them turn out gay. Understanding that sometimes girls marry girls and boys marry boys will not make them turn out gay. Their sexuality will be whatever it will be regardless of everything you do to convince them to be straight. Either your kids are straight and cis-gendered and will turn out to be the next generation of closed-minded idiots, or they are not, and you are doing irreparable damage to them.

#9 I'm not broken. 

Okay, I might be a bit odd, but I am not to be fixed. We cannot "do better" so please stop being disappointed for us. We have each found the perfect person for all that forever&always mushy soppy stuff. The odds are crazy. There is nothing in this situation/relationship to be disappointed about.

#10 I've never asked you about your sex life. 

I never will, I'm British. I blush and hide when sex is even mentioned. Please never ask again.

#11 There'll be free food.

And free alcohol (and yes, free non-alcohol) and we won't make you dance if you really don't want to. No, scrub that, we'll probably make you dance. You never know, it might be fun.

*I've replaced every reference to "nuts" with a picture of a squirrel. You're welcome.
**The Church will catch up one day, I repeat over and over to myself.