Lilyofthevalleyuk’s BlogBarf

25 (26+8 really) Things about Lily

February 10, 2009 at 3:43 pm (Family & Friends) (Cinema, Dixy, Honey, Lily)

There’s a ’25 Things about So&so’ note going around Facebook. You write a Facebook note of 25 things about yourself and tag 25 people you are interested in getting to know that little bit more. My sister Honey tagged me in her note the other day. It brought such a smile to my face because I could really relate to her list. It was as if I had stumbled across an old journal I had written at her age and was reading words written from my own hand. I actually see my own hands in hers; they’re practically identical save for mine having a deeper tan colour. And we’re the same size so I can nick her clothes (as I can my brother’s). For the past couple of days whilst brushing my teeth, doing the washing, having a gossip with my grandma etc a few statements popped into my head that would, if I were to compile a 25 things list, be numbered. Here they are:

1)  I absolutely love people who reply to random/crazy/inane/seemingly bland suggestions of things to do with a ‘Hell yeah!’ or ‘Wohoo!’. For example, ‘Let’s go to Tescos! Wohoooo!’ or ‘Do you want to walk across London through the night and find out where we end up when the sun begins to rise? Hell yeah!’

2) I have so much fun with my siblings. Just having lunch together or tidying the kitchen nearly always results in me raucously laughing in a very much unlady-like-bad-example-of-a-mild-tempered-Muslim-girl manner ‘til my sides hurt and I’m gasping for breath between each involuntary peal.

Just the other day I walked past our front door and heard a slight whimpering. Ladoo was standing outside rubbing her cheeks against the glass pane whilst Honey was on the other side of the closed front door stroking the same glass panel and making the whimpering noise as if there was no glass between them and she was petting a puppy.  I had no idea why they were doing that. I had no reason to ask. I still laugh thinking about it.

3) 2008 was my emancipation.

4) I passionately hate texting, emailing and instant messaging as a method of ‘chatting’ with someone.

5) I dislike tidying up. While cleaning I have the constant image of the sand in my egg-timer of life draining into the plughole of the filthy sink I am cleaning at the forefront of my mind. I think cleaning is a necessary evil.

6) The concept of ‘home’ is very dear to me. Home is a place clean enough for you to lie on any surface in any part of the home (in the hallway, behind the settee, on the dining table) and sleep without the worry of dirt going up your nose or things getting stuck to your hair. Home is a place warm enough to walk around in shorts and vest even in the midst of winter. Home is a place cosy enough to beckon you back when your walking around outside with a cold runny nose and ice-cube fingers. Home is a place welcoming enough for your friends to know that they can call in whenever they please, have whatever’s in the fridge and stay over for breakfast the next morning as they can’t be arsed to go back to their own pad because its late and they’ve only got cereal and stale milk waiting for them in the morning.

7) I’m not sitting on a chair right now but actually on the surface of my desk, sitting sideways to the screen and monitor with my back curled and legs bent and one arm snaked under them as I’m typing this. It’s beginning to hurt my back a little.

8 ) I’m facing the wall against my desk which has photos of my sisters when they were littler at nursery and Brownies; a coloured drawing on thick cartridge of a cartoonised version of me as a mad scientist which was a gift from Mags; and a page from the Metro, Monday, March 1, 2004, with a full page image of Mohammad Ali and the caption in capital letters;

“IMPOSSIBLE IS JUST A BIG WORD THROWN AROUND BY SMALL MEN WHO FIND IT EASIER TO LIVE IN THE WORLD THEY’VE BEEN GIVEN THAN TO EXPLORE THE POWER THEY HAVE TO CHANGE IT. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A FACT. IT’S AN OPINION. IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT A DECLARATION. IT’S A DARE. IMPOSSIBLE IS POTENTIAL. IMPOSSIBLE IS TEMPORARY.
IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING.”

9) I take photos of everything, including the food I eat when I’m out. Sometimes I forget details of the ins and outs of what I’ve been up to recently. The photos cement those memories. I can and have and do spend hours looking back at old photos.

10) I like to cook but I hate the fact that it can take up so much time, so I keep things simple and whack in whatever I’ve got together, dump it in a bowl and enjoy.

11) I charge my batteries with other people’s enthusiasm and energy.

12) I absolutely love dancing to loud music with lots of bass. My friend Shy calls me a ‘bass whore’.

13) When I was younger I always dreamed of running an orphanage.

14) I don’t think all babies are cute. Some are weird-looking. Some have an evil glint. Some look boring. Others just look like plain vanilla babies. You do get cute babies. Quite a few are smiley babies (mainly down to the fact they have wind and they’re letting one rip at that moment). My favourite are the cheeky variety. (And I don’t think that not finding all babies cute would stop me from being a super-duper-cool-amazing-orphanage-running lady.)

15) I love driving. I love noisy diesels. It hate it when you can’t hear the gear change.

16) I don’t like being a friend only when in need. Sometimes I don’t mind it because at least they keep in touch even if not for the reasons I would like.

17) I love making things with my hands.

18 ) I find talking very openly about personal issues and opinions is the best way to deal with them. I used to keep many things to myself because I didn’t want others to judge me. I also realised that I wasn’t vocalising some things because I was being cowardly and didn’t have the guts to put into words those thoughts that you know you shouldn’t be thinking or wishing. As a childish example – imagine you had a very old cat that was on its last paws and it didn’t do much except poop all over the house rather than in the litter box due to age-induced incontinence and so you couldn’t go away for weekends because it required all lot of time for care and you couldn’t find someone else to care for it for a weekend. Thoughts that you should not really be thinking let alone vocalising would include, ‘the cat is a burden’; ‘I wish it would hurry up and die so I can get on with my life’; or ‘I’m thinking of leaving the cat in a box outside a cat charity shop and buying a new bouncy kitten instead’…etc Nowdays, if I wished that cat would get run over, I’d say so.

19) Sometimes I miss my siblings at night even though they are sleeping only one floor below me so I creep into their rooms, shake them a lil to wake them up and have a chat which they never remember because they’re half a sleep. Sometimes if it’s cold and I’m cosy I’ll just text them.

20) I absolutely love meeting strangers and feeling as if I’ve known them for a long while after a 5 minute chat. Sometimes I walk around collecting petals of the different flowers I pass and put them in my pocket. Sometimes I collect new friends in a similar way.

21) I don’t think children should consume more than 1 litre of Coca Cola per annum. I think parents who top up their kid’s glass with Coke should be done for child abuse. That includes my aunt Shazia.

22) I love the rare, brief feeling when I wake up some mornings of not knowing where I am. I half open my eyes and my stomach tenses as I hold my breath due to the shock of the unexpected surroundings. After a few moments of taking it in and realising where I am, I release my breath and as the air gently expels I feel a wash of calm come over me and all my muscles relax.

There have been times where I’ve woken up and I can feel the heat of the sun warming me through the window and the sound of the waves outside my door and I have absolutely no need to figure out where I am – I instantly have a huge smile across my face. There have been times where I have woken up unaware of my surroundings and then felt overwhelmed by the feeling of snugness and security which comes with realising where I am, feeling that there is nowhere else I would rather be and knowing there is no reason to leave my cosy spot. In those instances I usually wrap the duvet around myself a little tighter and with a smile on my face I close my eyes again. I’ve also woken up unaware of my location and as I regain the sense of familiarity of my surroundings I feel a wave of poignant sadness lightly sweep over every part of my body as I realise I am no longer in the place where I wake automatically with a banana-grin.

23) I first really started going to the cinema when I was about 16/17 and had started sixth form as that was the first time I had free lessons and so could leave school without anyone (i.e. parents) knowing my whereabouts. I had been a few times before but its a very different experience going when you want to go to watch what you have chosen with the people you want to share the movie-watching experience with and with no-one bollocking you with how much you will be sinning by being in a mixed environment (i.e. there are also going to by boys there! gasppp!) and rather than watching such trash and giving the angel on your left shoulder something to write about you should be more productive by putting your head down to the mat and repenting for your sinful ways and sinful thoughts such as suggesting going to the cinema, and being further bollocked for it because it is a waste of money as terrestrial TV shows films for free.

When I sat in the cinema at age 17, I watched High Heels and Low Lives and laughed so hard and so loudly that by the end of it I felt I had been through a short but powerful process of rejuvenation (but in the lighter sense of the word so as to not sound like a hippy). I bet if I watched it again I may not even find it half as entertaining. But actually maybe I would? I have just checked it’s imdb rating – 6.1/10. I guess it must be pretty crap because I usually don’t touch movies unless they’re an 8/10 plus. The crap rating is testament to the effect of the overall cinema experience on me and not the specific movie.

When I started watching films in the cinema at that age I felt I had discovered a 6th sense. Another way of describing it is it was as if I had never been able to experience the sense of touch. As if plasters had been wrapped around my fingertips and toes and then at that point of watching those films, the plasters had been delicately removed and I couldn’t get enough of touching, caressing, stroking, gliding my fingertips over every single delicious surface – feeling for the first time the rough texture of carpet-like fabric on the cinema seats, the perfectly smooth glass surface of the popcorn counter, the soothing cool feel of the metal on the buckle of my bag.

I would watch a movie and be so absorbed my the loudness ( I think some cinema’s have become quieter now) of the dialogue and score, the colours on the screen, the smell of sweet popcorn from the person sitting next to me (God forbid it’s a man!), the wide-angle cinematic shots of stunning landscapes that I would go home to dream about… My heart would race when the suspension built up. I was always the annoying cow that you could hear gasping overdramatically when the axe-murder springs out of nowhere and your thinking that it was so obvious that was going to happen in the movie that nobody could possibly have been so shocked. I was really always that shocked.

I used to be so absorbed by the whole thing that I never remembered who I actually went to the cinema with, nor where I watched it. It was just me and the movie.

I still to this day (not that 2001 was that long ago) assimilate myself to movies I watch in the cinema. I still come out of the cinema feeling my senses have been heightened. I wait until the end of the trailers to let the after-taste of the movie linger and I feel more tactile. I am more aware of the texture of the carpet on the bare soles of my feet and the tips of my toes, the fabric of my socks between my fingers as I put them back on and the way my shoe laces wrap around my fingers as I tie them up.

24) When I finally get my own place I’m going to go back to Maroc and buy all the furnishings from Chefchaouen.

25) I wish I was 10 times as fit, fast, persevering and strong as I am right now. I need to work on it and make big efforts.

26) I had only really eaten out at Dixy Chicken and similar 2squid-chickenburger-n-chip joints up until I started university at 18. Other rarer occasions of eating out, which were considered more of a treat, included McDonalds and Pizza Hut. Once my aunt treated me with a meal (and dessert!) at Harvester on my 11th birthday. I loved her unconditionally for years afterwards.

When I got to uni my first real meal in a restaurant was actually a dessert – the main dish was too expensive. It was at Tootsies, Bond Street. It was a rich, sticky chocolate brownie that cost 4 squid. I shared it with Salz and we split the bill. She was humouring me. I was shocked that half a dessert cost the same price as a stuff-yourself-meal! She wouldn’t have thought twice about having a 6-course meal there. It took a while for me to realise how tight I must have seemed but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t hold it against me. She didn’t even acknowledge the situation and treated it as if it were the norm. Thinking back she was so lovely about it. Salz is a lovely chick.

HAHAAAAAAA! At number 23 I got a little stuck and couldn’t think of what else to write so I ‘phoned a friend’.  I absolutely love his response:

i) You will only use one particular nail cutter in the whole world
ii) You can only wear shoes with arch support
iii) You can’t jump, but you know how to bounce
iv) You knew about Primark way before it was hip
v) You can drive on both right n left sides of the road
vi) You have an advanced – read “kick a$$” – driving licence
vii) You believe you’ve been chased by a wild pig in Italy
viii) Once you tan, it’s for life

I am sorry, have just done this within 2 minutes without any real thinking, not sure if it’s any good…

I think at the bottom of everyone’s 25 Things Facebook note, the people who have read them should write what specific and not obvious things  they know about that person. Feel free to do so here…And I want to read your lists. I’ve really  enjoyed compiling my own and I can’t imagine anybody not getting the same kick from doing so.

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