Closed Until Further Notice

Despite my best efforts and after subjecting my PC to umpteen virus checks and tests, I am still unable to access this blog from there. Until further notice you can find me on Twitter (link at the very end of my blog page, after the hotties) or at my temporary home www.Tumblr.com/blog/2funnygirl. Hopefully I'll see you there xxx

Problems with Google and Blogger

For the past couple of days I've had problems signing in to Blogger to post on this blog. I don't know if it has taken the huff because I opened up a Tumblr account to post pictures. At the moment I can only sign in and post from my iPod (which I am doing now) so I'll have to see how it goes. I'd be sad to leave Blogger but I've had so many problems with it lately and if this situation doesn't change Funny Girl will have to find a new home.
In the meantime you can keep up with me via Twitter and the aforementioned Tumblr xxx

More Growing Up To Do

This was my homework for my drama class last night. I had hoped to be more creative, involving music and some dance performance but a sudden if not wholly unexpected flare-up of my ME and Fibromyalgia symptoms meant that I had to resort to writing this at the last minute i.e. in the wee sma' hours of Friday morning.

So, I think what I want to talk about is growing up.
I look at the younger people here and I remember being at primary school, on the cusp of going on to high school, with your whole lives ahead of you. And I want to scoop you all up and tell you that not for one second to ever lose the hope and imagination that fills your head right now; not to listen to the “mean kids” who will tell you that they don’t want to be your friend any more because they are the ones who’ll end up with no friends while you’ll be soaring to great heights. And I want to say to you, don’t grow up too fast – there’s plenty of time yet for boyfriends and make-up and high heels – hold onto these moments for just a tiny wee bit longer.
And I look at the slightly older ones – aye you lot – in your late teens and early twenties and I want to tell you that IT’S GOING TO BE ALRIGHT. Whatever you feel right now – scared, worried, unloved, unwanted, like you just don’t care or you care too much, that your heart is broken, that it’d be better if you just ran away, that you’re sick of people treating you like a child, that nobody listens to you, that nobody understands – everybody feels like that and that these feelings are real. The bad news is you are going to feel like that again and again and again. What’s important is that you learn that it’s OK to have these feelings but the secret is not to keep them inside, eating you up. Share them if you can with your mum or your dad or your mates, write them in your diary or on your blog or on Facebook, make them into a song you can sing. Don’t let them eat away at you and stop you being awesome.
And to those of you a wee bit older, at that age now where you maybe are thinking of settling down, that you are a proper grown-up now doing grown up things like taking on a mortgage and becoming all po-faced and serious. What I want to say to you is CHILL OUT. By all means do what makes you happy – working in a call centre might be a joy but do it because it makes your hear sing, not because it’s right. What’s right for you, that’s what you need to know. And especially those of you who are soon to become parents, what I say to you is go out find the biggest, fastest roller-coaster in the land and go on it, or bungee jump off of the Erskine Bridge or run about the back streets of Easterhouse shouting “you are all a bunch of scabby wee neds and I can fight yiz aw’”, because, my friends, if you think that’s scary, just wait. It’s true when they say having a child is like having your heart breaking free of your chest like the wee alien in the movies and running about and all you can do is watch it and try to keep Sigourney Weaver from killing it. I often think new parents should watch “Alien” but view it from the alien mother’s perspective. Then tell me who the bad guys were. But it’s the most wonderful thing you will ever do, no matter how many times you do it and even though you don’t feel like it when they are off in a huff or trying to cadge a tenner off of you or going on AGAIN about Harry Potter, it’s amazing. And it will go so fast, so savour EVERY. SINGLE SECOND.
But most of all, I want to talk to the auld yins here, like me. Those of us in our 40s and 50s, who’ve seen it all, who have aches and pains and struggle to get motivated, who one minute were chilling to Floyd, pogo-ing to the Pistols or shuffling to the Human League and then in the blink of an eye would be happy to give their back teeth for a comfy seat and a wee nice wee cup of tea. What I want to say to you is STOP! It might feel like life is over, that it’s time you moved on and made way for all these youngsters coming along. But you’re wrong. If, fingers crossed, we manage our health and keep ourselves active by keeping on doing what we are planning to do here, then I have news for you – you might only just be halfway there! You could have at least 30 or 40 more years on this crazy planet. That’s several more decades of reading great books, watching superb movies and listening to some great tunes. When we were wee, if you wanted to carry about all your music, you’d need a shopping trolley. And now you can travel with 800 songs on something the size of a passport. You can watch movies on that same gizmo. You can phone anyone from anywhere with that phone IN YOUR POCKET. You can look up libraries of information at the touch of a button. In a generation we have gone from watching Star Trek to in some ways living it!
So I say to you, don’t be in a hurry to buy a rain mate, a tartan trolley or a Pac-A-Mac just yet. Don’t wear beige and don’t order stuff from the back of the Radio Times. And don’t watch Pointless! I put that on iPlayer the other day to see what my mother in law was talking about and I could feel the life just draining out of me. Tell yourself right now that life isn’t anywhere near over. Grow up? We haven’t even started!

How True!

Looking for ideas for the A to Z blog challenge in April

Yes, I know it's me getting ahead of myself again but if you learn nothing else about me from these witterings you will know that I'm hyper-organised and like to know what's ahead of me. If you look to the right of my blog in the top right corner you'll see a wee box with A to Z in it. I have committed myself to taking part in a blog challenge on 26 days (not counting the weekends) in April. This involves writing a blog on each of those days on the subject of the corresponding alphabetical letter - therefore day 1 = A, day 2 = B and so on.
Now, I think it would be dead simple for me to come up with subjects that I could write easily about e.g. movies, comedy, geekery, cooking, music, etc. But I want more of a challenge. I once went to a comedy night called "Car Crash" where the punters wrote ideas for routines on slips of paper which the compere pulled out from a bucket and the comedian who was up next had to do 5 minutes on that subject.
So, I'm opening up my "Car Crash" A to Z to you, dear blog readers. What I want from you are your suggestions for what you want to see me writing about. Any subject as long as it's not too obscure. And nothing too rude please - I'm not out to offend anyone's sensibilities (for a change!). You don't have to send me an idea for each letter and it doesn't have to be all on the same subject either - one letter, 26, whatever.
Pop your ideas in the comments below, e-mail them to me - jeanne.andrew@btinternet.com - or DM them to me on Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/jeanne_andrew. I'll try to pick out the most interesting and challenging. Keep an eye out from April 1st (no joke - it is a Sunday but that's the first day - I don't make the rules)to see if your idea is the one I'll choose. If I get really good ones, I might blog on a couple.
Thanks in advance and get your thinking caps on my loves xxx

Willows and Oaks

Well, that’s my dancing days over for now and I’m a bit sad. It was amazing to be afforded the opportunity to perform with such wonderfully talented people so thanks to Christine, Jude, Skye, Lulah, Andy, Tony, Robin, Luke and all of the crew for allowing this ugly duckling to experience a taste of being a swan.
I was bowled over by the strength and athleticism of the dancers in particular – how effortlessly they moved and how they seemed to fly as if lighter than air. The two women, Christine and Skye, were small and hadn’t an ounce of wasted fat or muscle on them. How I wished I were that lithe – I have often longed to be lifted and carried as if I weighed no more than a dandelion seed being carried in the wind, to feel arms around me and lift my feet off of the ground.
As I have said on this blog before, my dancing days ended when, deemed too tall and stocky to dance among the tiny ballerinas of my own age, I was moved up an age class. As much as I enjoy dancing and carried it on into my twenties, I knew I’d never be leaping into the arms of a waiting Nureyev.
I was bemoaning such to Skye after last night’s performance. And then it struck me – we can’t all be like that. What a strange world it would be if women were all less than 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed less than 10 stone! Sure, we’d be able to duck and dive and weave and get into tight spaces and make ourselves small. And we could be carried off by Richard Gere in his white uniform or swept up like Rhett Butler. But we need women like me – women who are built like defensive walls, who provide shelter and succour, who have our feet planted firmly on the ground. I’m not saying that smaller women are anymore delicate or less substantial, less able to hug or comfort. They have masses of strength and fortitude - Christine danced with an injured leg and had an ice pack on her knee right up until the beginning of the first show and they all had plasters and strapping on their feet. What I’m talking about is from my perspective. My own mother was tiny and weighed sometimes as little as 7 stones. She was physically undemonstrative and I never remember her carrying me around. As a young-ish mother, I hardly ever used a pushchair, carrying Vee around at in first a sling, then in a backpack carrier and often in my arms, asleep. I swung her around, threw her up into the air and picked her up.
I have carried round 25 kilogramme sacks of flour, moved pallets and loaded trucks. I have provided event security. I have stood firm against police horses and fascists alike. I have moved furniture. I have held friends and family tightly to my more than ample bosoms as they cried. I hug and squeeze tight.
I am a rock and a foundation. I am a buttress against life’s erosion. It takes a lot to knock me over and I get up again and plant my size 7 feet as firmly as before.
We can’t all be beautiful tiny dancers. Some of us are here so that others can dance.

More Chancer Than Dancer

Newspapers are tomorrow's fish and chip wrappers but for one day, my lass Vee and I made the local edition. The Glasgow Evening Times did a wee interview with me on Monday about the dance performance PUSH that we are taking part in tonight and tomorrow. We had the full dress rehearsal last night and it went really well. Although Vee and I plus Xana, John and Matthew are only in it towards the end, the whole show is magical with some spectacular athletic moves from Christine, Skye, Andy and Tony, amazing singing and dramatic speaking by Jude and a fantastic performance by wee Lulah. I'm kind of sad that tomorrow it will be over for us but feeling really inspired with lots of ideas to take back to our theatre group's "We Are All Just Human Beings At Different Stages in Our Lives". My thanks to Christine and company for allowing me the privelege to be a small part of this fantastic piece and, if you are in Scotland and close to one of the venues, I urge you to go and see it and support people from your community who are likewise taking part xxx