Hocus Pocus, diddely doo...

Some of you have probably heard me allude to this previously, but if you haven't, then all I can say is this:
"I Did Me a Spell and Got Me A Man"  - and not just any old (not even 'old' as a matter of fact) 'man' because, reader, I married him!

I had 8 years (interspersed with the occasional 'relationship', of course, I'm only human - no, seriously, I am) of being a born-again-singleton, following my husband's disappearance with his secretary.  I know - this is art imitating life or the other way round, I'm never sure , but I'm certain it's God's way of passing me more material for future fictional use.

[aside - to God]: "No, it's fine.  No, honestly it is, I can see the funny side of it now - no, no, you're okay, it didn't kill me.  Yup, I can use it somewhere.  In fact I already did.  No, it was rejected.  No, that's fine too - seriously - yes, neverending material, it's all good.  Mmm. Thanks.]

And during this time, one of my friends gave me a cute little book called "There's a Little Witch in Every Woman" which I used as a wine glass coaster for about seven of those barren years.

Coincidentally, the author of this cutesy little book, the lovely and clever Deborah Durbin, has since become a very dear friend since we met on a writers website a year or so back.  And she's pretty hot with anything Magickal.

I remember actually doing this.  I was sitting at the little round table at one end of my kitchen/diner in the little house the Girl and I had moved into 7 years previously and I was probably only flicking through the book because I'd just lifted the wine glass from it.  Initially I was contemplating the 'fortune' and 'success' spells but then I was drawn to this one.

The 'spell' (if I remember correctly) told me to get an action figure.  Great. In a house with 2 girls and 2 cats, the closest I'd get to any kind of 'doll' would be an old Barbie - and as much as I loved Transvestites, I didn't especially dream of growing old with one.  

And then you had to dress him in the style of clothes you'd like Dream Man to wear.  Double bloody great.  There was no way I was driving over to Toys R Us, buying a Ken and then finding a selection of groovy outfits for him.  I might have been alone without any whiff of finding a decent bloke, but I wasn't THAT desperate.  And even if I was, I'd just sunk half a bottle of wine.  It'd have to wait until tomorrow.

So I simply drew the outline of a male figure on a sheet of A4.

In the 'spell' you had to lie him down on the sheet - my way  just required more visualisation.  And then you had to draw arrows from his body ( at this juncture, I'm just glad I hadn't got a real action figure, because last time I saw a naked Ken, he was sorely lacking in some 'areas') to indicate personal preferences like eye colour, hair colour, height, etc... all the basics required for your regular Dream Fella.

And then add characteristics.My Prince Charming would be kind, smiley, compassionate, clever, funny, tolerant, hard-working, love his mother, play an instrument, love cooking, etc...   And I made sure my list included 'lovely smile'.  A big,  generous smile.  Because if someone has the kind of smile that can melt the hardest of hearts, then my heart is theirs, no questions asked.

And on the reverse of this paper you had to write down what you didn't want.  The type of things you wouldn't tolerate.  So I included stuff like:
* 'won't have an affair and run off with another woman',
* 'won't get blind drunk before he goes to work  and then be found in a milk van by the side of the road at 7.30am',
* 'won't call me a miserable, sour-faced bitch when I have PMT'
* 'won't fear the dentist so much that I can't make him laugh because that would involve opening his mouth to reveal incredibly spikey, gappy teeth in what is otherwise a quite nice face after half a bottle of Pinot' and, of course, the clincher,

* 'won't insist that wayward, unsightly hair growing from ear holes and nostrils is in any way funny and funky and that wearing slippers and sucking an unlit pipe when there's guests coming round is in any way "Retro".

Kind of thing.

For the final part of the spell you were to sprinkle some Rosemary over the figure's head but I just couldn't be arsed.

I remember staring at this drawing for ages and then having a bloody good laugh at myself for believing such a man (ever) existed, and that 'spell's in whatever shape they took really worked.  So I chucked it, downed the rest of the wine and threw myself into a mad dance round the kitchen to the strains of "I will Survive" or similar. No, I actually DID do that. In fact I did that a lot.  I even had the neighbours round once to ask me to keep it down - the height of Sad, being asked to keep the noise down when you're home alone... still... like I said, material...

A year later this guy walked off the A4 sheet and into my life.  I didn't realise he was my 'Ken' then but it didn't take me long to work it out.

I got some nice 'extra's too: the incredibly sexy tattoo on a very hard muscled arm and the heart-fluttering carpenter's toolbelt... Phew! Either somebody Up There must really *heart* me - or else there's a bigger Witch in this Woman than anyone's given me prior credit for!

p.s. is it too late to add on the reverse of my wish *mustn't snore  so much and get quite so angry with the nice people at Vodafone?*

p.p.s. all the *'s actually refer to separate blokes - all these "qualities" in one man, I have yet to find.  Eeeew... can you imagine?!

My first is in Dentist but not in Drill... or something like that

Do you like riddles?
Nope, me neither. They're too similar to clowns to be comfortable, aren't they?
But because this word rhymes with SCARY and WARY and .... okay, back to SCARY again.  And ExtraOrdinARY, perhaps... I thought I'd be all riddle-y with you as a little teaser.
The word is... *dah-dah-dah* HAIRY. And along with alluding to something in the hirsute department, it can also be synonymously-rhymed with 'scary' and 'wary' too - so altogether a nice little bundle of sense.
In my head, that is.  And we don't really want to dwell on that for too long, do we?
Anybody who knows me already knows that since the 2nd 'C'-word I haven't been myself much.  I go out even less now than I ever did - and that was hardly ever.  I have become what is known around these parts as a bit of a recluse.  A hermit.  I am the Howard Hughes-in-training of Bedford (walking about naked on uninterrupted streams of Andrex excluded - for the time being - and until we can source much thicker nets for the windows).
And a trip to the Hairdressers has never been Up There on my list of favouritest things in the world to do.  In fact it's probably equal first with the Dentist if I'm to be frank - and currently I'd rather be Frank than Debs any time of the day or night thank you very much.
So imagine my dismay when I thought my Ladyshaver had run out of steam as I pulled a great wodge of hair out from underneath my arms, only to find it still attached to my head - the shock - the horror - the hideousness of having to  find the wherewithal to even make an appointment at the Hairdressers! (Note:  the hair being stuck under the pits is my SIGN that I need a trim.  I will even walk with elongated arms rather like a Neanderthal for an extra week if it will earn me more time to put off making the hairdressing appointment.  Oh, and I cut my own fringe.  Badly, apparently.  But then that could very well be tactical on Hairdresser's part).
I digress - but then you already know that.
Don't you HATE HAIRDRESSER-SPEAK almost as much as you hate Riddles and Clowns... and Dentists?  I do.
'Haven't seen you since February - what've you been up to then?' I am asked pleasantly.
And for some reason I am compelled to NOT gloss over the past few months with an airy 'Oh you know, this and that...' - and I believe that reason has something to do with the list of "side effects" I noticed on the information leaflet inside my sleeping tablets.  Along with the usual, "depression/difficulty sleeping (WTF?)" and "headaches/hand numbness" and "metallic taste/difficulty swallowing" -, is "relaxed grip on reality" - which I always thought would be a positive thing. Not so during a trip to the hairdressers, apparently.
So I told her everything.  About the 2nd crash and how it affected me and how anxious I'd become, how I virtually quake at any thought of having to travel anywhere at any time and how paranoid I'd become generally.
And she shut up.
There was a tiny query as to how badly I'd been hurt... to which I'd repeated (maybe menacingly, maybe not, it's difficult to tell what with this relaxed grip on reality that I have) that physically I'd just suffered the whiplashy thing, but that I'd been PSYCHOLOGICALLY damaged...
Which quelled the queries again.
To the extent that I even left the salon with still-wet hair, as she told me "Professionally" that she liked to leave curly hair on the damp side because it didn't drag down the natural bounce.  Yeah right.  What she actually meant was: " Jeez, I'm not getting involved with all this crazy-shite-psycho-wank, I'll give it a cursory trim, lasting all of ten minutes... maybe just snap the scissors a bit and not even touch the ends of her hair...  reduce her price by a tenner and she can blimmin' well drive back home looking like a frightened dog that got caught in a thunderstorm, trapped, trembling in a car and given a quick run-through of the Highway Code before feeling able to drive off...
If I'm lucky, she may even get home, burst into tears in front of her husband and vow never to have her hair cut again.  By me, at any rate."
Which I did.

8th July .... 1980

You all know my predilection for Time Travelly stuff, right?  Well, I thought I'd dip into what I was doing exactly 30 years ago and here's my diary entry for  8th July 1980.
Briefly,  this was the year I left school (in a mighty huff as I wasn't allowed to go to Art school as I'd hoped)  and so I started working in the most Arty place I could think of - as an Apprentice Hairdresser in a posh Hair/Beauty salon in town.  Clearly, I'm not enjoying it much...

"Hate it! Absolutely detest the place an' I'm not - repeat NOT joking.

Met Jackie at dinner - Ginny came in 'cos Fliss was havin' her hair done.  Alison (big one) told me I was fat and I should try wearing something else! Humph!

Got on the wrong bus comin' home!

Biddenham, Bromham & Oakley - 1 hour late home.  Went down Del's.  Saw George 4 a fleeting second.  Lay in tomorrow!"

Also, clearly, exclamations marks were the way to get my point across!  And I'm wracking my brain trying to remember if there was a 'small Alison' to offset the Big one.  Much lol-age!

Because *I'm* Worth it...!?

Yep.  I wish.
The Hubs has been otherwise engaged, so I've been pretty much left to my own devices lately.  And this happened to include the getting to become rather too regular for comfort root-touch-up at the weekend.
[Ah...didn't I already say...? That along with being particularly skilled at turning the roughest piece of wood into a thing of beauty, the Hubs is also a bit clever in the hairdressing department]?
Anyway... forget about the nicely-(calmly)-worded leaflet that comes with detachable gloves/plastic hat.  Here's what REALLY happened:

1.  Locate oldest, pre-'use-by'-date-stamped (thereby possibly prehistoric) box of 'Vibrant Reubenesque' and marvel at beautiful image of pouting (albeit Cyclops-ed) redhead on box.
2. Want some of that.  Desperately. Esp. recently.  And she looks so 'together'... Well, doesn't she? I bet she doesn't tremble when faced with a steering wheel, gearknob and a 40 minute drive to work.
Anyway...
3. Starting at the roots, perform almost impossible feat of manoeuvre with pointy-end of plastic comb, parting hair along the scalp to reveal (worryingly silver) roots.
4. Ignore funny fizzing noise emitting from just-shaken bottle of colour-creme combo.  Maybe Hubs never mentions this because it's entirely  normal.  Convince self of normality of even louder fizzing noise.
5. Daub inconsistent meandering length of 'Vibrant Reubenesque' along said parting and squint worriedly into bathroom mirror.  Ignore purpley colour.  Again, probably completely normal.
Repeat.
A lot.
In fact over entire headspace.
6. Do what instructions say and relax whilst colour gets to work.  No mention of still-fizzing bottle which also 'cracks' when you squeeze it.
Still relaxing.  Kind of.
Albeit with mad-staring eyes in bathroom mirror.
7. To take mind off of strange noises and dubious colour of hair, wipe gloopy mess from ears, neck, chin, nose, bath, sink, windowsill, basin and windowframe (don't ask) and manage to turn nice cream bathmat into  underfoot Dalmation-pelt feature.
Persuade self of intention to do this all along.  Bathmat was dull anyway  Cream is SO last year.
8. Squint even closer at  blacky-purple hair roots and begin to sweat profusely.
9.  Sweat some more.  It's good for you.  And increased heart-rates are all the rage right now.  This is cardio-vascular.  Breathe in.  And out.  Enjoy the moment.
10. Check instructions and feign understanding.
11. Sweat even harder.
12. In one seamless movement fling head manically over bath, spotifying all over-bath wall tiles, swipe shower-head from stand and eradicate worryingly fizzy, black concoction from head until all that remains is a decidedly orange scalp where the first lengths of colour were squirted.
Nobody's going to notice the spots in the bathroom. If I refuse to allow anybody in it.
13. Fire up computer, enter 'Funky hats' on EBay Women's Clothing search bar and...relax...

Not.