A-Z of Me

A is for Art.  

I absolutely love art, I got an A at GCSE and would have taken it onto A-Level if a careers advisor hadn’t of told me it was a lot of work for someone not planning a career in it and it was considered a soft option anyway. I used to paint and draw a lot, at one point at school I was selling portraits of people for £1 a time, which doesn’t sound like much but 3 portraits bought me a 3 litre bottle of cider when I was 15! I don’t draw or paint so much now, except the crafts that I do with Cassie, which we are absolutely atrocious at. I also love visiting art galleries, not that I have much of a chance anymore – I really want to see a Magritte in person. I love a lot of modernist and surrealist art but not so much a fan of post-modern art, to me Tracy Emin and Damian Hirst have ruined the art movement. I’m also a big fan of street and comic art, especially if it is politically or historically motivated. 

B is for Breasts. 

I used to have a lot of them, an F cup in fact. But for the first time in my life, my breasts have shrunk! No longer are my breasticles limiting my choice of attire! (For the moment). I don’t know what Slimming World has done to my figure but previously on diets, my chest has stayed the same size…not dropped a back size and two cup sizes! I am now a more normal 36DD, which I think is the smallest they’ve been since I was 20. Which doesn’t make sense because I’ve been skinnier than this in my twenties…

Another interesting development is the fact that my bum is not shrinking. My tummy is going, my breasts are shrinking, yet my bum has stayed the same. It is starting to look enormous when you compare it to the rest of me. Still it could be worse, I could be shrinking everywhere but my tummy…

C is for Christie and Cassie.  

Which a lot of people don’t know, but that’s not actually my real first name. My real first name is Christina-Joanne, a name so big I never quite grew into it. My dad wanted to call me Christie from the start, after Christie Brinkley the super model (wasn’t he optimistic?) but my mum said it was a dogs name! Although she got her way on the birth certificate, my dad refused to call me anything but Christie and in the end he won, because that is now my name. I love my name, I’ve only met one other Christie in my life and I like being fairly unique. That combined with my really unusual maiden name made me one of a kind. Unfortunately, my married surname is more common and there are now two of us in the world with the same name and the other Christie also lives in the North-East, in Sunderland and is a foul mouthed chav going by her Facebook picture and the email she sent me when a company accidentally sent her a bill rather than to me. 

I think it was semi intentional that my and Cassie’s names are very similar. I’m Christie Joanne and she’s Cassie Jessica. Repeating history really, I loved the fact my name wasn’t popular but wasn’t weird either so actively sought a similar name for Cassie. We gave her Cassandra as her Sunday name, but from the start she’s been a Cassie through and through. 

As I’m sure you all know, I adore her. She’s everything to me, even if she is two going on twenty-five. 

D is for Douglas Coupland. 

Douglas Coupland is my favourite author of all time. I love his take on modern and post-modern culture, I love the fact his novels are just so quotable. I love the pop-culture references, I love the silliness of the likes of J-POD, I love the way that he is not afraid to parody himself. Girlfriend in a Coma was one of those novels that changed my life and the way I think about things. I discovered it around the same time as I read Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and both those novels have remained in my top 10 for many many years. I honestly do not think Douglas Coupland has done a bad book, they all have something amusing or insightful to say about the year in which they were written. 

I’m also a big fan of Douglas Coupland the graphic designer as well. Some of the art installations he has set up in public spheres are fantastic. He was a designer and a visual artist before he was a writer. I love the way he subverts 20th century pop art. 

E is for Eggs. 

I am permanently on the quest for the perfect soft-boiled egg. The white needs to be hard and the yolk runny and light orange, served with medium cut white bread in soldiers with lashings of fresh salted butter. I don’t know what it is, but I simply cannot boil an egg to my own specifications, no matter how hard I try.  It’s the running joke in my family that the one thing I salivate over is the simplest thing that I actually cannot cook. Seriously folks, if I ever come to stay with you, soft-boiled eggs and toastie soldiers is the way forward…if you can do them right! 

F is for Failure. 

I constantly feel like I’m a failure. My self-esteem is rubbish. A lot of this is because my original life aim was to be educated, see the world, travel a lot, have a good job, get the hell away from my family and be independent. Somehow I ended up married with a child, stuck in a part of Britain I had no interest in and being trapped in poverty. So I’m forever doomed to match up horribly to my own expectations. 

G is for Guitar-playing Gav

I have a real thing about boys (and girls!) who play guitar well and who can sing. I think at least two of my ex-boyfriends first became sexy to me when I saw them with a guitar in their hand. It’s so cliche but I do have a soft spot for musicians. I’ve always wanted a guy to write me a song. Alas, when it happened it just wasn’t as cool as you’d think. I had an ex called Gav, who I’d remained friends with. When I was having a rough patch with Shaun in 2005 when I had to withdraw from my Uni course temporarily for my health, I stayed down in Northamptonshire with friends for a bit and started hanging out with Gav again, strictly as friends. When I went back up to Leeds and reconciled with Shaun, Gav decided to go on some kind of weird offensive, calling Shaun and telling him that I’d slept with him (he wishes!). Stalker-ville!

Here’s where it gets even weirder. Gav knew my brother David…not amazingly well, but well enough that they’d chat down the pub. When I blocked Gav on pretty much every Social network I was on at the time and changed my mobile number, Gav decided towards the end of 2005 that he was going to go and visit my brother David in Cardiff. Bearing in mind, they weren’t really friends. Apparently they got drunk and at the end of the night, Gav whipped out his guitar and said to David "You know me and your sist

er were an item, don’t you?" and David was like "Yeah, years ago when she was like 15". Gav went "no, we got back together this year. I’m going to sing you a song I wrote about her…"

My poor brother was subjected to what he could only describe as very bad, Nickleback-esque pseudo audio-porn. Describing Gav’s imaginary conquest of me, in physical detail. My poor brother was very embarrassed and very confused. We had a very awkward conversation over the phone after that. 

I have never heard this famous imaginary making-the-beast-with-two-backs song, but David was not the only person to hear it. Apparently he also performed it in my (former) local pub back in Northampton. According to the various people who’ve heard it, at least it was very complimentary about my "technique". I have never spoken to Gav again, I’m a bit worried that I’d end up locked in his basement. 

H is for History. 

I am a total history nerd. I set myself little projects to keep my mind active, like learning about specific time periods. Old subjects of interest were The Titanic, The Tudors, Queens through History, Witchcraft and alchemy in the Middle Ages, Victorian Health reforms, WWII in particular the Holocaust and the Jewish relocations to Palestine before WWII, which in turn leads to reading about the history of Israel. At the moment I’m mainly reading into the history of trade in Britain as a spin-off from a historical epic I’d been reading about the Medieval Wool Trade and I’m also reading a lot about Irish History because I’ve been researching my family tree. Now family tree stuff is really interesting, learning about the way towns have grown and developed, reading about occupations in certain time periods, searching through censuses and old documents. 

I is for Ireland. 

Northern Ireland to be precise. It’s my homeland, at risk of sounding romantic and twee. I only lived there for a few years in infancy but it’s the only place that feels like home because it’s been my only constant, I’ve moved round that much. I’ve always had family there and when I was a child I spend nearly all my school holidays at a Grandparents house over there. I love the food, I love the history, I love the people and I’m over there a week and I’m already getting an accent again. 

J is for Jism. 

Simply because nobody else has put it yet and for some weird reason, it was the first word that popped into my head for J!
I haven’t even heard the term in years!
Now what can I say about Jism…apart from that currently it is not allowed to work it’s wonders in my ladybag? Also, my tolerance for it as I’m getting older is getting less. When I was younger, Jism did not bother me, now I simply cannot be bothered to swallow. Is this the curse of the marriage bed? I’m sorry if that was TMI, but really…you read the title, what did you expect?? Perverts. 

K is for Keepsakes. 

 I have a lot of these, kept neatly in memory boxes. I keep small mementoes of things that give me good memories, including every letter that every ex-boyfriend has ever written me, post-16…the first CD I ever bought, ticket stubs, beer mats and random things from places abroad that I’ve visited etc. I’ve just thought that that would make for quite an interesting entry, a photographic record with words of the things you have in a memory box…seems like something you’d write about Christina? 

I also have a seperate one for Cassie-stuff. My mum never kept anything of mine, but I keep a bit of Cassie’s. I’ve got my pregnancy test, scan pictures, the first pictures she did, her first collage, postcards that people have sent us and from the places we’ve visited while she’s been too young to remember, random photographs and paint imprints of her and my hands at various ages. By the she’s 18, it’s going to be a memory CHEST. 

L is for Literature. 

Yet another pretentious love of my life I’m afraid. I’m an English Graduate, what else did you expect me to put? I just love books…they don’t even have to be particularly pretentious. 

My favourite books at the moment are: 

Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Silence by Shusaku Endo
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver 

but I also read things like Twilight and Dorothy Koomson, so I’m not all up myself. 

M is for Marriage. 

I take my marriage vows very seriously. I believe you have to work at a marriage, it’s not always plain sailing but you’ve tied yourself to someone and you owe it to that relationship to try and make it work. Especially if you have children. I don’t think anyone should stay together for the sake of the children, but I do think people can be rather trigger-happy. 

N is for Nomadic. 

The word that Dan uses to describe me. I do not like being stuck in one place, especially a place with limited public transport so I can’t get to other places. I feel like I’m a tiger pacing round a cage growling. I like moving to different places and I don’t really like feeling tied down, which is completely at odds with the previous one I guess. Before I settled down with Dan, I really really wanted to travel and that still bites a bit, actually. 

O is for Ornament. 

I detest ornaments with a passion. I like them in some other peoples houses, but I can’t stand them in mine. I hate needless clutter, in fact by nature I’m quite minimalistic. Dan’s mum has ornaments on nearly every surface of her house and all I can think about is just how long it must take to dust them, or how much dust and germs there must be clinging to them. And how breakable they look. 

Because of my hatred of all things ornamental, my house usually looks pretty bare and not as homely as other peoples. I just don’t have the knack, for me I can only envision something blank with no stuff in it, which doesn’t work once Dan and Cassie move their crap in. Both of them are terrible hoarders. Plus we are poor and you need a bit of money to have a house that looks minimalist while storing a lot of crap. 

P is for Post. 

I never open my post. It’s a really bad habit of mine. I feel a sense of dread when it come

s through the door because it’s never anything good. I even get that sense of dread when I open up my emails, even though there is never anything there to upset me. Upon my dad’s prompting, I make myself send my granny little postcards and letters with pictures of Cassie and me every couple of weeks. My dad says she really appreciates it and it makes her day but she never writes me one back or picks up the phone to call me. I’m wondering whether this fear of the post is hereditary. I’m not very good at replying to post people send me either, but I’m getting better. 

Q is for Quiet. 

I used to be really loud and outgoing, but I’m a lot more reflective now and a better listener. I think this has come from years of living with Dan and having no friends. I appreciate it when people talk to me now, I no longer take it for granted. I wouldn’t say I’m quiet exactly, but I’m definately a lot calmer than I used to be. 

R is for Rice. 

Since I started slimming world, my overall cravings for cheese and crisps have turned into an overwhelming need for rice. Rice…what’s with that? 

When I was pregnant, I also craved rice and gravy. What is it with me and rice? 

S is for Sex/ Sexuality. 

Once again, I am REALLY suprised no-one has put this. Be prepared for TMI again. 

I’m quite open-minded where sex is concerned. There are certain things I’m really not into – I don’t like bodily fluids and anything illegal is just not sexy to me. In theory, I’m more open-minded than my experience would have you think. There’s a lot of things I fantasise about inside my head that given the opportunity in real life to do, I just haven’t done. For example, however much I fantasised in the past about having hot anonymous sex with a stranger, I’ve only had sex with 3 men, all within long-term relationships. People are usually pretty surprised when I tell them that. 

I would say that I’m Bi-sexual but I’ve obviously got a stronger attraction to men because I’ve always been in a relationship with men. I don’t know whether this is because of my Christian background or what. I kind of wish I’d experimented more with this side of my sexuality before I got married but I think at the time, when I had the opportunity, I wasn’t secure within myself. 

I also used to be incredibly highly-sexed. I’m talking feeling the need to have sex several times a day. I also had hyper-sensitivity, meaning I could orgasm from the vibrations on the bus or from stimulation of secondary sexual organs. Ex-boyfriends loved it, I’m very easy to please but it was more an annoyance than anything. Since I’ve had Cassie, it’s like I’ve gone the opposite way…a lot of the time I just can’t be bothered. When I do do it, often I’ve got to think of the most outrageous, filthy fantasies in order to get myself going. 

T is for Travel. 

Something I haven’t done enough of. I have so many things I want to do in my life and I’m worried that I won’t have the time to do them. I want to visit Italy, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, The battlefields of France, Morroco, Japan, Canada, Florida, California, Kenya…oh there is just too many places. 

U is for University. 

I’m really hoping I get in next year. I miss academia and I know nursing is going to be a more practical course but it’s just going to be so great to be learning again. You would not believe how much I’ve missed it. 

V is for Victoria Sponge. 

I love to bake. I only started teaching myself two years ago and I’m pretty good at the basics now. Presentation is not my strong point but my stuff tastes really good. I do a Victoria Sponge, which although it wont be winning any prizes, is in my opinion better than the slices sold in the shops. Cake-wise, I can’t do pretentious or showy but I can do the type of thing that you’d see on a WI stall. 

W is for Weight. 

Sorry Catriona for stealing your word again. I also have weight issues. I never used to, I’ve never been the skinniest girl in the world but at my happy weight I was a trim size 12. At my heaviest, post-birth I shot up to a big size 18 with 40F breasticles. It was not a good time in the world of Christie self-esteem. I lost approximately a stone before I joined Slimming World a couple of months ago and from then till now, I’ve lost a further stone and a bit. I now fit into size 14’s with room on the top and I’m a small size 16 in trousers (14/16 in dresses). I’m not very good at sticking to plan all the time but I’m confident that by this time next year I’ll be fitting into my old size 12 clothes again. 

X is for Xenophile

I love learning about foreign cultures, in particular Japanese culture. I learned Japanese for a short while, I like anime and Japanese art and I’ve read a lot of Japanese literature. 

Y is for Yummy. 

There are lots of things I think are yummy. I particularly like most types of cheese, excepting blue cheese. I love goats cheese, brie and camembert cooked in the oven. I love cooked cranberries, fresh honey with greek yoghurt, new season British strawberries. I love the flavour of duck, lamb pilaf and anything cooked with cinnamon. As for cakes, I’m very partial to carrot cake or anything with a good buttercream. I love a really good Banoffee pie. 

Z is for zzzzz

Something I don’t get enough of, seeing as I have the Toddler who never sleeps. Seriously, some days I sit and cry due to lack of sleep. My ideal present would be for someone to buy me a hotel room for the night absolutely anywhere so I could check in, have a bath and go to sleep.