A-Z of Emotions

A-Z of Emotions I Have Felt Since I Last Blogged

I did one of these awhile ago, and now I think it's time to do another. Are you keen to find out whether I found actual emotions beginning X and Z? Here we go...

A - Awkward. You know when you need to say something to someone, but you don't know how to go about it? Usually when I need to say something difficult to someone, I start off with, "Um, I've been thinking er, that er..." and I finish with, "If that makes any sense."

B - Brave. But I overcame the awkwardness and came out with it in the end, as followed: "Um, I've been thinking er, that er... hi. If that makes any sense."

C - Childish. I was watching one of my favourite videos yesterday, as found below:

D - Disgusted. Yesterday I was in the Disney Store (feeling childish again, yes), telling my friend that it's OK for me to be seen in the Disney Store because I only look about 15. Then she says to me, "You know that old man standing behind you was just checking you out." I know I am a legal adult, but he doesn't know that!

E - Earthly. I was standing next to some hippie white dude with blond dreads yesterday in the supermarket, checking out the vegetarian food in the freezer section. We both reached for a packet of quorn "chicken" burgers at the same time. Saving the world, one burger at a time.

F - Fantastic. I really did. Honestly.

G - Growly. Rather, my belly was feeling growly. I woke up yesterday morning, grabbed a banana (not the same banana in the video - a different banana) and left the house, and didn't consider re-filling my stomach until about 3 o'clock. The belly was not very happy.

H - Hopeful. I hoped that it would not rain, as I did not take an umbrella out with me. My hopes were answered.

I - Irritated. A couple of days ago I got FRIGGING BITTEN BY A SODDING MOSQUITO ON MY LEG! It itched, so I went to go get my Witch Hazel cream from where I usually keep it. It was not there. So I looked in the baskets of skin cream I keep under my bed, thinking maybe I put it there when I was tidying up the day before. Nope, not there. I looked in every drawer. NOT. SODDING. THERE. In the end I put up with an itchy bite for the rest of the day.

J - Jealous. Last weekend I went to the park. I was, literally, the whitest person there. I don't get it.

K - Kung-fu-ish. Alright, alright: I suck at thinking of words beginning with K. But at least it's better than Kit-Kat-ish, which is what I was originally considering putting down.

L - Lethargic. The sun makes me sleepy.

M - Moody. Piss off.

N - Naked. Yes, this is an emotion; it's similar to feeling exposed and vulnerable. I had a dream last night that I got naked and looked at myself in the mirror, and realised I had grown a petticoat made out of flesh around my hips, and that it made me look somewhat like an Elizabethan dinosaur (I know you didn't get dinosaurs in the Elizabethan era, but just go with me on this one). Thankfully, it was a removable petticoat. My jeans fit a lot better once I'd taken it off, and made me look less like MC Hammer.

O - Optimistic. The world is at my feet, it truly is.

P - Proud. I did three kick-ups on Wednesday. Three.

Q - Quixotic. I still only have one emotion beginning with Q. However, I now know what quixotic means, and I was feeling quioxtic the other day when I set my alarm clock for 6:30. Ha.

R - Relaxed. There I was: chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool, and all shooting some b-ball outside of the school... Oh wait. I think this happened to someone else.

S - Serene. A day spent in the sun without nothing else to do can make you feel serene. The migraine that soon follows it? Not so much.

T - Tender. I am a tender individual.

U - Understanding. I am also very understanding.

V - VIP-y. Now I'm just bullshitting, clearly.

W - Weird. I am always weird, though. My friend said "You're a weirdo" to me so many times yesterday that I lost count.

X - X-treme. Hell yeah.

Y - Young. In spite of the fact that I don't particularly identify with all these songs out at the moment about being young (i.e. Tulisa and that Indie band), I do still look about 15. I need to slap on more makeup, obviously.

Z - Zumba-y. I might, y'know. I just might.

I think there was a film about this once. It had a happy ending.

Being a woman is hard.

That isn't to say that I think men have it easy. I would hate to live life knowing that if I were to have a bad day and as a result broke down crying in the middle of the office at work, that everyone's level of respect for me would hit the ground and never get back up. I would hate to live life knowing that if I ever had a child, I would be assumed to be the secondary caregiver, and that the school would always contact "Mum" before "Dad", regardless of the fact that "Mum" might be out of town on a business meeting, and "Dad" might be at home making the beds and fixing dinner. I would hate to live life knowing that if I took time out to be a dad, when people asked me what I did and I answered, "I'm a stay-at-home dad", the looks I would receive would be different to if a woman answered the same question with, "I'm a stay-at-home mum." I would hate to live life knowing that I must shave my face every morning or else risk looking like sasquatch, though I suspect I might have to anyway once the menopause hits. I would hate to live life with testicles. Those things look like they get in the way.

But I do think that women have it harder. Just sayin'.

There's biology, for a start: hormonal rollercoasters every month, blood gushing out from between the legs, doctors shoving things inside you every few years to check for pre-cancerous cells, childbirth, saggy stretch-mark ridden skin that will never be the same ever again, swollen milky boobs that are destined to wind up pointing south, the capacity to be a parent having a time limit, hot flushes, to-HRT or to-not-HRT... From the onset of puberty until we leave the world, we put up with regular shit, and that's just biology. There's also society, and society is, if anything, the biggest bastard of them all.

We live in a world where women are all of the above, and yet we are told to be something else entirely different, or at least to pretend to be. We are hormonal and suffer from occasional (and sometimes constant) low self-esteem, yet we are told to be confident and beautiful, or else we are crazy and high-maintenance. We have periods every month (sometimes more frequently), which more often than not come equipped with debilitating pain, yet we are told to get on and go to work, look yummy and not speak about it - and don't let anyone see your tampons! Our bodies are put through massive rapid changes during and after pregnancy, and yet we are told that we are meant to "glow" when pregnant, and are expected to look like these celebrity mums who personal-trainer their way to anorexia six weeks after giving birth. We are told breast is best, and yet the length of maternity leave in this country doesn't really allow for the government's current recommendation of two years, nor do people feel comfortable seeing a woman breastfeed in public, because apparently breasts are not breasts, they are tits. We are told we can achieve the same high-paid professions as men, and yet can we? Or do we have to choose between babies and career? Or do we wait, and run the risk of finding out that our eggs have gone bad and it's now too little, too late? We are expected, as "sexi ladiez", to fill the bars and clubs while filling our stomachs with cheap promotion alcohol, and yet are told not to travel home late at night by ourselves because we might get raped - and if we do then it's actually kinda our fault because we shouldn't have been wearing that dress, and really - what do we expect? When we hit 40, we have to choose to become either "past it" or "a MILF", because for some reason the option to be a "silver fox" or "distinguished" is reserved solely for men.

The world wants us to be confident, beautiful, intelligent, classy... and up for it. There is something intrinsically wrong with us if we're not. Apparently.

Every time I walk into a newsagents these days I see women's magazines with eye-catching headlines like "HOW TO GET THE PERFECT SUMMER BODY" and "HOW TO TURN HIM ON" and "HOW TO GET FLAWLESS SKIN". You know what I would really love? I would really love it if we stopped asking ourselves the question "How do I do this?" and instead start asking ourselves "Why the hell should I?"

Welcome back.

When I was younger, like a lot of kids, I had a debilitating fear of death. I know you're probably thinking that a fear of death can't debilitate a nine-year-old, and that perhaps the only person it can debilitate is maybe a funeral director, or the person who puts makeup on dead people to make them look less... well, dead. But it debilitated me. I stopped going to church, I ducked out on a few funerals (I know, I know) and I used to lie in bed at night staring up at the ceiling, thinking to myself, "It's gonna happen. One day, it's gonna happen."

Around this time, I was taken on a family outing to Highgate Cemetery (if you're not familiar, it's a pretty famous burial spot, where the likes of Karl Marx and George Eliot have taken their final resting place). Confronting a fear head-on? Maybe. The thunderstorm didn't particularly help, though - nor did the fact that as we ran towards the gates of the cemetery, our shoes slipping on the wet ground and the thunder crashing in the dark grey sky above us, we found that the gates were shut. And thus ensued my first ever panic attack.

I was remembering this moment yesterday, and wondering what it is, exactly, that makes cemeteries and all things relating to death so terrifying. No one really wants to die, and if they do then either they have lived a full life and feel their time is now, or something is very, very wrong. If we did all want to die, we'd be jumping off cliffs left, right and centre and our species as we know it now would simply cease to exist - so of course a fear of death and a fear of the unknown is perfectly normal, and I accept that now. I just don't understand the tingling sensation that creeps up and down your spine when you walk into a cemetery or a morgue, and why that is feared by so many. Why don't we feel the same way about the remote control when the batteries run out? Just imagine the scenario:

John lounges on his sofa late at night, flicking through the channels. As he reaches E4, he notices the volume button becomes unresponsive, but he assumes it's a problem over at 4, and nothing to do with him, and so he keeps flicking.

He reaches the music channels and stumbles upon his favourite band, Steps (yes, John like Steps). He happily watches their old hit 'Tragedy', even joining in on the dance moves he remembers - but then the song ends and the video fades into darkness, and the presenter introduces the next video: 'Oops I Did It Again', by Britney Spears. Ugh (John doesn't think much of Britney; he prefers Christina)! He goes to change the channel.

Nothing happens.

He presses the button again.

Still nothing.

He tries different buttons, even the eject button even though he hasn't watched a DVD in months, but nothing, no matter how hard he pushes and no matter how he angles the remote control, works. It is then that he realises that the remote control has died. The thing inside it that makes the remote control work has stopped, it's reached the end of its life. He glances up at the clock: Time of death, 20:34. He lays the remote control down on the sofa, takes one final glance at it and exits the room, closing the door behind him.

He goes to the kitchen. He sits down, thinks. Then he stands up again, paces to the cupboard and pulls out a glass, filling it high with whiskey. He downs it at once and slams the empty glass down on the counter, wincing and glancing back towards the living room, where lies the dead remote control. He suddenly feels a sense of panic rising over his spine. What if...?

No. He musn't think those things! The remote control is dead - remote controls cannot rise from the dead. And even if they could, what would they do, exactly? Float into the room in an eerie fashion, making "Wooo" noises, and try to eat his brain? No. No, that simply does not happen. It can't happen.

Two hours later, John's flatmate Sylvia arrives home, back late from a crap date. She slams the door behind her, fuming at her date's sheer audacity in trying to kiss her. How very dare he! She walks into the kitchen and finds John sitting there at the table, dark circles under his eyes, cradling himself and rocking backwards and forwards in his chair.

"John?"

John can't look at her. He opens his mouth, and the stench of alcohol creeps out.

"John, have you been crying?"

John's head hurt. He can't even concentrate on the tiled pattern on the floor. Sylvia touches the nape of his neck with her cold hand, and he jumps a mile.

"What the..." Sylvia says. "What's wrong?"

John stands on the other side of the room, still holding himself. Slowly, he lifts his gaze to meet Sylvia's eye.

"The remote control..." He begins. "It... I was just... I don't know what happened. It just..."

"John?"

"It died, Sylvia. It's in there now, dead. I can't even... What if..."

Sylvia takes one good, long look at John, and then asks him to kindly pack his bags and leave. Quite frankly, he's starting to give her the creeps. Then she fetches a pair of batteries out of the cupboard and inserts them into the remote control, which lives again.

Yes, there WERE 29 days in February

It took only two months into 2012 before I became ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY RIGHT about one of my 2012 predictions: there were indeed 29 days in February. So put that in your pipe and don't smoke it, because smoking is gross and, let's face it: it kills.

At the time of writing the above blog post, I suggested that perhaps I might propose to some lucky fella this year. Cos, y'know, us women are allowed to do that on 29th February. We've been given permission. The mighty men at the top of the hierarchy have decided that damage will be minimal and we deserve a treat for being such good women the last four years. So I did it, guys and gals. I decided to propose to someone.*

@Afobe I will propose to you TOMORROW. Not today. I do things in my own sweet time.
— Martha Everitt (@Maaarfer) February 29, 2012

Unfortunately, quite a few ladies got there before me, and while Mr Afobe did not accept any of these proposals (as far as I am aware), I am not one to be overshadowed, and so I chose not to propose to the young Arsenal player the following day, after all. Sorry, matey. So close, yet so far.


* This was following @Afobe's request that a bunch of people propose to him on Twitter. I think he was bored.

Where the hell have you been!?!?

I guess it's about time I explain my notable absence from the blog for the last month. Trust me, this time, I have a valid excuse (unlike that time last year when I tried arguing that maybe, just maybe, my house had been burgled, my car had been driven off a cliff, and I had been thrown off a moving rollercoaster 50 feet in the air and had broken every bone in my body... incidentally, none of which actually happened), and when I tell you, you will jump up and down and squee, before glancing around awkwardly in the realisation that what you just did was so not cool.

For the last month and a half I've been working on a play - my third "finished" play and my first play ever to get performed. I know, I know: how exciting. Scriptwriting itself is nothing new to me; while I've hardly been doing it for 30 years (two and a half years and counting, actually), I feel completely at home writing dialogue. I always play down the Hollywood idea that everything happens for a reason - fate, kismet, destiny, hocus-pocus and all that crap - but I feel now as though I finally have an explanation for why I had to endure a good 16 or 17 years of my life living with a crippling shyness: because I talked so little, I listened instead. So yeah, while you lot were sitting around chatting about your friendship bracelets and your first snog and how "Oh my god, my mum totally doesn't get it!" (and yes, I'm stereotyping here), I was eavesdropping on you interesting lot and, subconsciously, finding out how conversation works. Oh, and FYI, if you want royalties, then pfft, feck off. You lot wouldn't let me play with you, so you get NOTHING. Suckerrrrrrs.

The play is on in under two weeks!!!! (...Wait, hold on. I think we need another exclamation mark...)! (...There.) I still actually have no idea what is in store, so watch this space.

Another thing that has been taking up vast quantities of my time is being part of the BBC EastEnders: E20 Writers School. You all know EastEnders, right? *Polishes nails off on blazer.* (I am actually not wearing a blazer, but I don't think an image of me polishing my nails off on my faded, misshapen pyjamas would quite get the image of me being a cool dude across as well.) I'm almost a month in and, as stressful as the workload can be at times (especially when juggling it with the play and my paid employment), it's been one truly amazing experience. Like I said, I'm not particularly new to scriptwriting, but so far all my experience has been with writing for theatre; writing for television is something entirely different. Add to the fact that I've been watching EastEnders for as long as I can remember. To use a cliche, it's a dream come true.

So there you have it. That's why I've been gone for more than a month. Yeah, it may not be burgalry or cliff-diving cars or flying off rollercoasters, but it's a close second.

Series: Video of the Week

If you're not an Arsenal fan, look away now. The following images may cause you to bury your head in shame and cry profusely at the thought that you never had someone so incessantly amazing play for your club.

If you are an Arsenal fan, well done, I say. Well done.

That's 227 club goals, and let's hope he can add more to that tally in the remaining six or seven weeks he has left with us.

Series: Video of the Week

This should probably be the bit where I make clear that the Video of the Week series isn't always necessarily going to be promoting a video that I wish to celebrate. Last week it was; this week it is not. This week's video is, nevertheless, still important.

The video below is taken from Russell Howard's hit TV show Good News. Throughout the week, Russell scours newspapers and the internet for interesting - and moreso funny - news stories. In this particular episode, he presents us with a story in the Canadian press about men with ginger hair being turned down for sperm donation. That is, they're being told that their sperm is no good because no one wants a ginger baby. And if the news story wasn't bad enough, then the moment when the studio audience's audible collective gasp is followed by a round of applause is, quite frankly, disgusting. They know it's bad and discriminatory, and yet they still applaud it.

This video is wrong on so many levels that I find it hard to know where to begin, but I may as well start with the actual news report itself.

The second we start to label certain characteristics as "unattractive" or "undesirable", we run the risk of discrimination. Sperm donation already discriminates against disabled people and those with other health problems, and of course I understand why it does, but it is incredibly presumptious to say that what is "undesirable" for one person should be "undesirable" for everyone else. The second you start to pick-and-choose who is allowed to spread their seed and who isn't, is the second you fall into very dangerous territory. Where sperm donation is used by women who can't find or don't want a partner, or by women whose partner is infertile, or for whatever reason they may have, what you are ultimately doing is attempting to weedle out one type of gene. The decision for whose sperm winds up in her body should belong entirely to the woman, and not an institution which "doesn't like" people with ginger hair.

What shocked me more than anything about this video is the audience's response to it. I thought that we British prided ourselves on our liberal attitudes, for our social inclusiveness (or most of us do, anyway) - so how can an entire audience of Russell Howard fans sit in a room and cheer for discrimination against ginger-haired people? And more than anything, how can there be no backlash, besides Russell saying, "Don't applaud!" before making a gag about ginger-haired people being pale-skinned? I'm a big Russell Howard fan and I even went to one of his shows last year, but I really don't know what he was doing here.

Ultimately, people need to stop looking at having ginger hair as a being negative thing - and that includes people with ginger hair. Nothing says "I'm ashamed of my roots!" (excuse the cheesy pun) more than someone with jet black hair, orange skin and ginger eyebrows. Take Nicola Roberts (former member of Girls Aloud), for example: here's someone who dyed their hair all kinds of shades of WTF and coated their skin in gallons of fake tan before finally deciding to embrace their ginger gene - and doesn't she look all the more better for it! But while that responsibility lies with them, the biggest responsibility falls on the shoulders of the rest of us: stop making ginger jokes, and stop pretending that it's acceptable. Because it's just not.