So, Christmas right?

So, this Christmas thing.

I used to love Christmas as a child. Like all kids, I loved leaving mince pies out for Father Christmas and carrots for his reindeer and all the other stuff that makes Christmas, well Christmas. Then I grew older (obviously!) and went through the trauma of finding out that it wasn't Father Christmas who ate the mince pies, it was in fact my slightly-tipsy father and that my mother wrapped all the presents whilst also half cut. I wanted to keep the excitement for my younger sisters so helped my parents to wrap presents and do all the other bits.

The best things I remember about Christmas as a child was the Monopoly game after we'd eaten. My dad worked at Marks and Spencer for a while and managed to get a huge oak dining table in black that could have easily sat 10 which was quite excessive considered we lived in a 3 bed through terrace house. But we'd all take our seats at the table, drinks ready, snacks ready and prepare for a game that would last for usually most of the evening. Whenever anyone left to go to the toilet, they used to take their money with them to make sure that none of us were playing dirty. Occasionally my mother would kick my youngest sister under the table when she'd missed someone landing on her property and we'd all fall about laughing when she used to say "Ouch, mum, why are you kicking me under the table?!".

We also used to alternate the Christmas meal between the whole traditional turkey, stuffing, Christmas pudding thing and a Caribbean affair which was basically just everything slathered in spices. I used to love helping each of my parents out with the meal and perhaps a sign of a masochist in the making, I even liked the washing up afterwards.

I think it turned when my parents divorced. We were quite a close family and for many reasons, the whole separation really affected us. I remember the first Christmas that I spent with just my mother and two sisters. We were all in varying states of misery and on varying strengths of medication. It was just a process to go through and I think Christmas lost its charm for me then. Presents are great when you're a kid but it's not about presents, money or just 'stuff', it's about the falling asleep after too much turkey, watching shit films and then being forced to thrash people at Monopoly (Apart from 2010 but we don't talk about that).

After that year, I started to despise Christmas and saw it as a money spinning effort which made the nation become obsessed with stuff and money. I mean, I've seen PC world computer magazines that have just stuck a couple of holly leaves in one corner and some 'snow' around the top of the page and then it's a perfect Christmas catalogue. Adverts that say they know "exactly what Mum wants" this year - I know for a fact my mother wouldn't like some trashy, two-bit watch from some "Buy now, pay 25 years later" shop.  Christmas was a time to chill out on my own and do the whole watching TV and eating until I sleep lark. But I never did it with my family.

And so it continued for around 5 years with different boyfriends, different levels of pessimism and different levels of Miller-family interaction. I think the change started when my sister had her first daughter. All children love Christmas, no matter what. I think I thawed out a bit and tried to enjoy Christmas the way my niece did. I've now got two nieces and this year is the most excited I've felt about Christmas in some years. I've banned presents (apart from me buying for my nieces as they're only young) but will be having my family round for the day after Boxing Day. I'm going to hopefully recreate the atmosphere that I remember from when I was young, lots of nice food, games, naff TV and someone (probably my boyfriend as he'll be the only male there) falling asleep with a party hat on. Memo to self, must buy party hats. I don't need anything and it'd break my heart if my family bought me presents anyway. One has two children and the other is self funding a university course and the thought of them spending money on me sickens me. I'm going to feed and water them until they're pogged and half cut, this is what Christmas is about!

So out with the shit Argos catalogues covered in holly leaves.
So out with McDonals doing festive pies
So out with those adverts saying that my father needs to have a Lynx shower gel and deodorant combo pack

In with Monopoly
In with having my family round and spoiling them silly (and fat, and drunk)
In with enjoying what Christmas is supposed to be about

Don't let anybody mess with your swing

I'm struggling. I'm feeling weak. I'm feeling like I've run a marathon only to realise I've hardly made any ground at all and have fallen into a muddy ditch, Everyone around me is trampling on, knowing where they're going and are focussed and determined. I'm sat in the ditch covered in mud, exhausted, sweaty and wearing my school gym kit. I'm one of those overweight, well meaning fun runners who has raised £50 for their local cancer charity, surrounded by dedicated 'athletes' who've been training for years. They've got those water bottles designed to be held in the hand, they've got designer trainers, they've got apps on their iPhones that tell them just how fast they're running. They're the kind of people that run during their lunch break and can run with others in a group as they don't completely ruin themselves just trying to keep moving.


I'm sat in this ditch feeling hopeless, scared and wondering if I'll ever be able to get up and catch these runners. Why are they so athletic and dedicated? Why does everything look so easy for them? Why can't I be like them and everything be so easy? Or so it seems to me.


Ok, so why can't I be like them? First reason, I'm nothing like these people. Every single thing about me is different to that woman there ahead of me.Well, not every single thing - aside from the fact we're both female and are in the same race, we are completely different.


Ok, so why am I comparing myself to these people? Why do I think they're better than me and that I'm a bad person for not 'keeping up'? Because 'being ahead' of these people is what I use to measure my success? My success criteria is based on external factors and this is so wrong.


Ok, so now what? I've decided that even if I wanted to, I can't be like anyone else. I can't be the gym bunny who goes running on their dinner break and 'does sport' as a hobby. I should stop trying to be like someone else. I should also stop comparing myself to other people, using external sources to judge myself is not acceptable.


I am happy in my skin most of the time, I am. I'm happy doing my own thing and just plodding on making sure that I'm doing what I want to do. There's a poem I read once and it quotes a famous baseball player called Ted Williams and one of his lines is appropriate right about now. "Don't let anybody mess with your swing". I really like that line. Don't let anybody mess with your swing. Nobody should ruin the way that you do things. Don't get distracted by external factors. Don't mess up your way of doing things because other people are distracting you. Just keep going with your own tried and tested method and don't let anything change it.


That's not to say that awareness isn't important. Being aware of what is going on around you is so important. BUT, don't let it affect you negatively. Don't let it mess with your swing. It's like having mesh blinkers on. You can see what's going on around you but it doesn't affect you, it doesn't frighten you. Yes, mesh blinkers, that's it. I'm going to think about mesh blinkers every time I get frightened about the big world around me.


OK, so I'm aware of the situation. I know what I should do. I should just keep on swinging. But how do I keep on going? Where do I get the energy from? How do I keep on going when I can't see the finish line, when I'm in that big ditch?


I'm still working that one out - it's for another blog.

My pop culture education update

Ok, so I have been squeezing more and more pop culture education into my head. I'm starting to become concerned that all these things I find useful and interesting will fall out of my head in an attempt to squeeze all these popular (as deemed by 'society') things in. What if for example:

• I suddenly stop loving Shostakovich and wanting to have his theme tattooed across my body (his name means much more to me than my own does. Even thinking of his music and what it means to me conjures  up such emotion that encompasses so many things in my life, right from back when I was around 16 and played his music for the first time) to instead spend my time shouting 'Get to the chopper' to my friends.
• My practice of Nicherin Buddhism keeps me on the straight and narrow. I'm not into the whole wishy washy thing of religion, it's not my cup of tea. I like Nicherin Buddhism as it teaches that I am responsible for my life, there is no external being out there deciding how my life will go and that if I want to achieve something then I have to pull my finger out and go and do it. Think of Buddhism as one of those Americal motivational speakers but without being irritating.  What if I gave all this up to start spending lots of time blogging about fashion? What if I spent all my free time seeing what was new on the catwalk (I thought I'd never see that sentence come out of my own fingertips) and traipsing round the high street trying to find the latest styles at budget prices. What if one of life's big dilemmas was 'should I risk wearing this *insert clothing item here* out tonight in case *insert name of friend here* is wearing it'.
• What if I suddenly forgot how to have a reasoned debate? What if my ability to concisely and effectively convey my point and reasoning fell out of my head one day and I somehow I became able to remember all the films that Arnold Schwarznegger had been in? What if I could name them chronologically and include the name of the character he played in the film? Would this be a good thing?

I guess the conclusion that I'm coming to is that pop culture isn't something that people need, it's not like a part of me is missing because I don't know these things. As a grown woman, I'm gently chided by some friends for not knowing these things but I never feel that I've been missing out as a child and that I've been living under a rock for the last 26 and a bit years. It's superfluous, is pop culture. It's not something that we need to make us good, rounded human beings. Some of my friends seem to think that pop culture does make us rounded human beings, I disagree. I believe that there are far more important things that make us 'human beings'. Empathy, courage, conviction, resilience, passion and a desire to improve ourselves are all much important elements than being able to quote every line from Wayne's World 2.

#HogletNights

In bed. I was supposed to be watching episodes of Desmond's but for the last 20 mins I've been entertained by Murray. Murray is our African pygmy hedgehog, we've not even had him a week yet. A few things about Murray:

• He has very sharp teeth
• He likes to scratch himself
• He can run very fast
• His prickles hurt

I've actually just had to stop here as Murray has just climbed into the bottom of my wardrobe where all my shoes are. I need to check on him, make sure he hasn't gotten caught in shoes. He did get caught in my knickers and I had to winch him out, tangled in a pair of M&S finest. I had to coax him out with a cotton bud which he wanted to chase. Nice.

• He sleeps A LOT
• He crunches biscuits like a motherfucker

Anyway - he's all round awesome. He's very different to Linford (my tortoise in so many ways). Linford is low maintenance, not affectionate, doesn't require a lot of attention and is just happy being on his own and climbing on stuff. He eats greens, he poops, he climbs about and then he goes back to bed. It goes sleep, eat, climb, sleep, more sleep, poop, sleep, climb, eat, poop and more sleep again. Murray goes sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, poop poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, eat, run around, run around, run around (this goes on for some time) and then back to sleep. He's nocturnal so having his cage in our bedroom probably isn't a good idea!

In the last 20 mins he's got a little routine going. He jumps out of his box onto the floor, circumnavigates the laundry bin and then spends a few seconds seeing how far he can ram his head in a toilet tube. Runs around with said tube on his head (he gets it WELL past the ears) until I pull it off and then off he trots around the bottom of the bed. Then he comes up the other side of the bed, having to tackle 2 pairs of knickers on the go (one, as previously mentioned is the M&S no VPL black knickers. The other is a cream cotton thong with green polka dots and pink trim). He then crawls down the back of the bed before jumping back into this box.

The only variations on this have been when I used an Alan Partridge DVD case as a breakwater (geddit?) stop him going down the back of the bed, when he climbed in the wardrobe and earlier on when he tried to leap down the stairs. 

Still a little frightened of holding him as his prickles hurt but hopefully when he becomes more used to me, he won't put them up as much.

I could watch him run around all night but I can't cope with the hag from hell on a night of no sleep due to hedgehog-fancying!

My pop culture education

Right. I know nothing about popular culture. Nothing at all. Well, that's a lie - I know that it exists. This is what I knew about pop culture 6 months ago:

• Lady Gaga sings songs and wear dresses out of meat.
• There is a man called Justin Bieber who sings songs and has lots of fans.
• There is a difference between Star Trek and Star Wars.
• Lots of people like zombie films

There is a little more but not much. I guess I don't really know much about pop culture because I wasn't brought up knowing about this. My parents liked dub and Orbital so this is what I listening to when I was growing up. When I got to 13 and started 'rebelling', I loved classical music (I had some wrong kind of crush on Rimsky-Korsakov when I was 13) and Marilyn Manson.  I've never liked mainstream music and this is what's in the media, on the TV, on the radio etc. I've never had that exposure to it so guess it's largely passed me by.

BUT - I am 26 and a half now. My lack of pop culture knowledge is obvious and I frequently get a ribbing from my friends for not knowing what is going on. For example, I thought that Arnold Schwarznegger was the stage name for the man who's real name was Robert de Niro. I thought they were one and the same. I still don't know who Robert de Niro is. Why don't I know this?! I'm going to blame my parents. 

I still don't think I'm "missing out", even though my friends do. I don't think I'm not as rounded a person as I could be because I haven't watched Dr Who since 11 February 1985 (the day I was born). I don't think that I'm missing out on life because I don't know who is shagging who in Holly wood. But, I think it would be interesting to try and fill my head with all this knowledge and at the end of this process try to see if I really have been missing out.

Areas that I'm going to concentrate on:

• Films. Not Korean horror films that I like but big blockbuster (or is BlockBuster the right word here?) ones and those American films that everyone loves. I've already watched Knocked Up and Role Models. More to come. I've also seen Evil Dead so know who Bruce Campbll (or Bruised Campbell as my boyfriend says)
• Comic book knowledge. This is pop culture knowledge. Fact. I've read 3 Alan Moore comics, that's enough for now. I can't do everything.
• Knowledge of who people are. I now know, Arnie, Bruce Campbell, Angela Rippon. Loads more!

I shall report back with my #PopCultureEducation findings

Spelling

I can't spell dissector either. This is not a good start

Start

This is the start of my blog.

I had a blog before but it was rubbish and depressing so I deleted it. I can't say that this one won't be rubbish and depressing but that is not my aim!

The name of my blog comes from a work friend who was talking about his dissecting skills. He said his dissecting skills were average, and the name 'An Average Dissector' was born.