July 30, 2004

Snippets

These are the kinds of short talks that we have at our house.

***************

Mr. Y: (flipping an omelette over in the pan) I'm making you some lunch.
Me: (Sticking my hand inside of his boxers and cupping his lovely balls and his penis) Mmmm...these feel lovely.
Mr. Y: The omelette is collapsing.
Me: Is that what you're calling it these days?

***************

Mr. Y: (explaining yet another bit of English culture that I didn't understand in his Higgins way) You wouldn't understand. It's a high-class thing.
Me: Hey-I'm very cultured. I understand about these things.
Mr. Y: You don't know dick.
Me: (raising an eyebrow) Oh honey. I do know dick.
Mr. Y: My point exactly. Tart.

***************

Me: (holding the remote in my hands) Look, Will and Grace is on!
Mr. Y: What do you find funny about this? Someone walks into the room and laughs! What's funny about that? (He takes the remote and changes to Newsnight, a political show).
Me: Look at that! That newscaster is hideous! And she's ugly, too! And ohmigod, that's the ugliest tie I've ever seen! (I can't help but check out newscaster's ties. And let it be said: men, please stop wearing pink shirts and pink ties. I can't help but think "labia" when I see it).
Mr. Y: I don't think it's that bad.
Me: Ohmigod! That guy, Slade Gorton? He looks like a skeleton! Or like the preacher from Poltergeist! Did they deliberately look for the ugliest people in the world to interview?
Mr. Y: It's a political show, Helen. They care about insight, not looks. And what the hell is Poltergeist?
Me: I know that, I like political shows, I just don't see why they need to bang the drum and bring out the hideous folk to try to make a critical impression. I don't need to be visually assaulted to get a decent opinion. And honey-we really need to start watching more movies.

At least I can say that for all their "critical impact", the Ugly People used a number of grammatically incorrect words. And I still say Gorton looks like the evil preacher. You decide.

Slade Gorton

Evil Preacher

***************

In the car to the gym, Mr. Y leans forward to snap his seat belt tight. He leans back. Then he leans forward again to test it.

Me: What are you doing?
Mr. Y: I just wanted to check the restraining mechanism.
Me: Most people shorten that and call it a seat belt. But you can call it what you want.

***************

Me: (snuggling against him in bed) I have been so tired today.
Mr. Y: Me too.
Me: I think I have the encephalitic lethargia. (note: like the disease they suffered in Awakenings)
Mr. Y: Right. No more medical documentaries for you.

***************

Me: (sitting on couch next to Mr. Y) I have found a major trait that is an advantage women have over men.
Mr. Y: Oh really? Do tell.
Me: We can stop mid-stream.
Mr. Y: You have been bored today, haven't you?
Me: No really. We can stop mid-stream.
Mr. Y: So can boys.
Me: Yeah, but it doesn't hurt us. We just stop. You guys herniate something and are in pain.
Mr. Y: (sarcastic) Ah. Yes, women truly are a miracle. What a trait.

***************

Me: (bouncing into the bathroom while a naked Mr. Y is shaving) Do you still enjoy having the sex with me? (note: things are always funnier if you add a "the" in front of it).
Mr. Y: (pausing mid-shave to look at me.) Yes.
Me: Ok. Just checking. Enquiring minds wanted to know.
I bounce out of the bathroom.

***************

Me: I downloaded a Roxy Music song today.
Mr. Y: They were good. Which song?
Me: More Than This. I just like the song. I also have Tainted Love and Take On Me. I don't know what's happening, I keep downloading your kind of music.
Mr. Y: What kind of music is that?
Me: (Shrugging) You know...old.

Note: This is not a dig at his age, but rather at the MTV generation. He considers "his generation" to be 80's related, whereas mine is more 90's related. So he gets the good music that makes our heads bop around and are used in Saturday Night Live sketches that get made into movies, while I am stuck with things like Vanilla Ice and Right Said Fred, both of which are not things that I am proud of.

It's kinda' hard to remember much about the 80's for me, seeing as I was barely menstruating at the exit of them.

80's music is already beginning to be considered Golden Oldies, albeit in the tasteful term "Classics". It's happening. I saw on VH1 recently during a channel surf that the Cranberries song Linger is considered a golden classic. Linger. For God's sake, I listened to that song in university. Between that and being too old for glandular fever, I really am reaching the over-the-hill point faster than I had ever thought.

***************

In bed he lets me stand on his feet. This is a big thing, where I flex my foot against his, and he keeps his foot straight so that I am standing up. You can't do that with every guy, just the special ones.
Mr. Y: (turning over in his sleep, making himself mold against me and whispering) You're very special to me.

And for once I keep my flippant replies to myself. I just smile and squeeze the arm he has snaked under my breast, and kiss his wrist. We go to sleep like that, and at various points in the night I wake up and find we're still entangled-me lying across his back, our backs pressed up against each other, even the basics of out feet tangled.

Sometimes the best comeback in the world is to just try to remember the moment and keep it with you.

-H.

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July 29, 2004

Normal for Nermal

All of a sudden, it's summer. Overnight. I swear I woke up a few mornings ago, bouncing out of the tall and comforting bed, leaving the sleeping fuzzy nude figure of a lovely man curled up in the middle of it and opened the window.

I was blinded by the sunlight.

Fantastic.

So it's with a slightly more chipper heart that I sit with the windows and doors to the house open. I wear boxer shorts in the garden and think of lovely cold pasta dishes to feed us on. And above all, I worship the sunlight and adjust my hems to suit it.

I had to go to London yesterday for meetings, so I did what any self-respecting businesswoman would do on a day when the temperature would reach the 80's in a London transport system with no air conditioning. I reached into the inner confines of myself and explored my levels of comfort and professionalism. Then I went to my closet to determine the best way to satisfy my desire to be taken seriously at work and my strive to enjoy my life.

And I wore the shortest fucking kilt that I have in my closet.
And strappy shoes.
With a very tasteful sleeveless top.

And man, I felt glamorous and young. My skirt, a lovely pleated number that covered to the middle of my thigh, looked very nice, not quite too short, and it made me feel so...young. Attractive. Nicely turned out. And...it has to be said...I think I have a great pair of long legs.

So with an appreciative comment from Mr. Y, I was off to the Big Smoke. He dropped me off at the train station and I read my latest Augusten Burrows book silently and happily the entire ride. Once there, I did what I prefer to do when the weather is decent and I walked the 20 minute walk from Waterloo to my office.

Walking on my way to the office from the train, I started wondering about a normal life. Mr. Y and I had had a conversation about that a few weeks ago, when he felt I wasn't very settled. The truth is, I wondered about when we would have a normal life.

So what is a normal life? Well...I don't really know, only it can't be as pipeline crazy as my life has been so far. This simply can't be what a real, normal life is. If normal life is like that, why is it so damn exhausting?

Normal life (to me), is the stuff that blogs and movies are made of. Dropping off kids to ballet and football practice. Racing around the kitchen trying to get the bologna sandwich crusts cut off in time to whack them in a plastic ziploc bag decorated with cartoon animals and into a hardtop Lizzie McGuire lunchbox. Sitting on the bed wearing my glasses and reading a good book while Mr. Y reads about his airplanes. Changing the door decoration on the front door to reflect the change of the seasons and holidays-a gruesome and overly cute Jack-O-Lantern puffy sculpture replaced by a repugnantly sweet looking Santa Clause. Going on holiday and packing twice as much stuff as you need. Getting cards that include the both of us and consider us a unit.

Don't get me wrong-I'm not at all complainging about our champagne Fridays, the spur-of-the-moment weekends to Paris or Venice. Heading to the bed on a Sunday afternoon for a three hour romp, or a picnic in the sun that includes a little oral pleausre with the camembert. I love all of those things, too. I don't want to give them up.

My whole life has been a wild roller coaster, tipping extremely at times and leaving me nervous as I sit alone in my roller coaster car, a yellow hard plastic number that is melted with handprints and a few crusty french frieds, my seat belt frayed along the edges, leaving me to think it's only a matter of time until I get cast out to my death at the next crazy curve. I grew up an Air Force child, which meant moving every two to four years. More so, I grew up in a turbulent household, so that meant moving at the drop of an unkind word. I've been married twice and have been mental for twice as long. I've been all over the world and never figured out where home is. I've left little parts of me like crumbs all over the place, and I am no longer able to follow where I left them.

These days, work has slowed down due to the summer months. I go into the office once a week. I answer mails, I partake in a few conference calls. Since I work from home those days, I do all of this in my boxer shorts and enjoy the background noise of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 7" and "Charmed" (I admit it. I watch it. I think Prue is a skanky ho and Piper has a fucked-up eyebrow, but I admit I watch the show). I come flying down the stairs and launch myself at Mr. Y when he comes home. I clean the house. I think about Alice.

At the same time, sometimes it all feels so temporary. We are renting this house and have filled it with inexpensive furniture we have little allegiance to-our exes got our couches, dressers, and TV stands, so we needed a quick IKEA fix. His divorce is final next month and mine just was. We want to buy a house, but we have the issue of settlements and where we want to live. My family isn't speaking to me, and his is only just doing so. We're still learning how to fit our feet into the boots of step-parenting, being away from the kids, learning how the other person takes up some of our breathing space, and how to handle each other's anger. Maybe soon he won't need to talk me down from the ledge when he loses his temper, and maybe soon he'll feel secure in how I feel about him to not stress sometimes.

Maybe, just maybe, this is a normal life. Maybe life really is so up and down, perhaps what you don't know about the normal lives you read about in blogs and see on tv is that after the normal hubby and wife go to bed, they get out their PVC gear and have a good spanking session. Maybe the husband goes to work and is a stunning asshole. Maybe the mother-in-law makes cutting comments to the wife at Thanksgiving dinners, comments that send the wife running for the cooking sherry in the pantry to calm her nerves. Maybe all that's normal life, too.

Kim used to tell me that I have a knack for crisis and chaos in life, that everything around me is always going 100 mph. I used to believe him, as I would look at the train wrecks that I would create around me and inevitably think: Why does my life always have to have a liberal sprinkling of crazy on it? Perhaps the truth is, I just needed the right person next to me to let me know that the crisis and chaos in my life is normal and manageable, if only I have a little help.

I think about this as I take the tube to Habitat, where I go to pick up some lighting fixtures Mr. Y wants (I love that he pays so close attention to our lights). As I swing out of the tube car, thinking about normal life, a man standing in the tube by the door checks out my little skirt. He sticks his head out of the car to check me out from behind, and is startled to bits when he gets smacked in the back of the head by the closing door.

I laugh my ass off as he rubs the back of his head, the tube car launching into the tunnel.

I hurry home and tell Mr. Y about it, and then sitting down next to him on the couch I take his shorts off and provide him with an extra dose of oral pleasure.

Maybe this is a normal life, for an abnormal girl.

If that's the case, then I will take it, with a few tweaks and additions over time. And I'll keep the champagne Fridays, thanks.

-H.

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July 28, 2004

Where's Due North?

There's a few things in my life that have me feeling like my equilibrium has slid out of order, that the see-saw I am on has been abandoned on the other side and I have hit the playground mud with a thud. It's just a few things, from my work no longer being my life, to my family not really speaking to me. I sometimes cling to little oases that I have in my life-writing my blog. The arch of the orchids that hang over my computer monitor. A comforting cuddle from behind by my favorite man as I sleep. Alice. Petunia tiptoeing near by, albeit veering to the left.

Sometimes when I think I have things figured out, that I understand that shape and curve of the waves that I seem to sail my life on, I suddenly find that I didn't really understand the current at all and my little ship gets capsized. My navigation, forever so far off-course that I keep getting bashed about the rocks, has been on solid ground for a bit with the help of a gentle Mr. Y navigator, but sometimes I think he forgets how hopeless I am at steering by myself and he saunters off for a cup of coffee, having to come racing back to help me steer away from the coast (Which way is north? How the fuck am I supposed to know? As the crow flies? What, do I look like a fucking crow?)

Friday Mr. Y and I went to the doctor since I am still just so damn tired that I find getting out of bed hopeless. I refuse to believe it's just depression-this is, after all, one of the few times in my life that I plan on someday recounting in heaven or hell (I never can tell which way I'm going) where I can stab a finger in the air and say: Look. Right here. This is where I am happy. See? Pretty colors, huh?

Big doctor informed me that he actually believes I have a really nice virus, along the lines of glandular fever, if only, as he put it, I weren't too old to have glandular fever.

Well, I'll be damned. Other than a student rail card, this was the first time I'd been told I was too old for something. Looks like the mid-life crisis really is around the corner. I mean, if even a virus passes me by due to my potentially arthritic body, then Jesus it can only be downhill from here.

Anyway, Mr. Y and I then asked about IVF, and what it takes to get on the list with the doctor. Turns out state funded IVF isn't available in our area yet, and won't be for nearly a year. So if we want a sprog, then we have to go private. Doc said he'd forward our name for a doctor and gave us some info, and home we went.

I don't know what triggered it, but we got to talking about this later at home. And the discussion didn't go well-it wound up being a spectacular argument where, while sizzling mushrooms, it turns out Mr. Y needs a bit more thinking time, that he is perhaps not feeling as positive to more children as I maybe had interpreted. I can respect this, I respect that he is not racing into a decision, and I don't fault him. I know that this would be a massive change to our dynamics and that we are rather new to each others' lives. I step back and we agree to go slowly and think about the child issue longer.

I ache-that's right, no melodrama here-I fucking ache to have a child. And the strange, new beautiful thing for me is...I really, really want his child. I want to be a parent with him. He brings out the best and most patient in me, I simply never knew or even suspected I could be so calm and relaxed, and he is such a fantastic and loving father.

Everywhere around me are children and babies. Fucking Lifetime TV channel shows back-to-back shows about having babies all day long, in case you wanted some estrogen to go with that sandwich at lunch, and that's one channel that I have to skip at all costs.

The truth is, I'm not in a hurry to do IVF right now. We should have some time together as just a couple. But I feel a bit of time pressure due to Mr. Y's age, and I don't want to add to his stress about being too old to have kids. I would be happy to do this sometime mid to end of next year, and just spend lots of time travelling, drinking, having romps in the bed, just being together. I have this finite plan in my head, where we try IVF a few times, and if it doesn't work then I guess we are a childless couple. And that thought scares me and makes me feel so small and lonely.

The truth is, I changed my mind. For so many years, I simply didn't want kids. Wasn't interested. No thanks, clearly not for me. It's only over the past few years that I realized I was changing-that I felt a lurch around them, that I really enjoyed the company of children. And spending time with Melissa and Jeff has helped me feel like, although I have issues, I know that my driving desire to protect children is perhaps one of my nicer attributes.

Last night in bed Mr. Y and I talk (not about kids), him holding me and talking to me. So much of what he said makes sense and I agree with-we are still getting to know each other, that although we have been in love for so damn long, it's something new to actually be with each other in a practical sense. The things he says is a salve on my heart and a cup of tea to my soul and I feel so good about what I have with him. I am so in love with Mr. Y that it hits me sometimes like a very gentle push in my ribcage, robbing me of air when I least expect it.

I would be so lost without him.

I wish my cats were here so badly it makes me cry all the time, so I go out and find Petunia and smother him with love.

-H.

Comments are closed on this one. I can't face any "it will work itself out", "you need to decide what you want", "why not adopt", or even "maybe you two should split up and get yourself an Argentianian boy-toy in his twenties that can't wait to procreate". None of those are options. Believe it or not, this whole subject is more difficult to discuss than even my suicide attempt was and deeply affects him and I. If I am not talking sprogs here on my blog for a little while, then it's because I just can't bring it up to the surface of me to discuss. I'm sorry.

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July 27, 2004

Kids, Kids, Kids

Sometimes the "step-parent" thing is hard. I look around at people and think: There's a step-parent. Did they have an easy time? Or read about celebrities and think: Wonder how their step-parenting is going. Their kids are the same age as Mr. Y's. Wonder how they handle it.

The kids are gone, Mr. Y is depressed, and I don't have any way of cheering him up. I don't even think I know how to anymore, I seem incapable of making anyone happy around me. But you know? I do miss having them around. I offered to Mr. Y that perhaps we could have custody of them (although their mother would never ever give them up) and the thing is...I meant it. It's stressful as hell, I have no right to punish them for bad behavior and it drives me nuts when they forget their "please" and "thank yous" but my God can they be good fun.

And the thing about these kids is, you learn so much about the world when you see it through their eyes. I've never known that before. And it's gorgeous watching how good Mr. Y is with them.

Melissa was back to feeling a bit insecure, I think. I felt that something had shifted a bit while they were away, and although she was very sweet and amiable, I felt maybe she was a little on edge about something. I know this is all hardest on her-being 12 she is aware of the sensitivities and the politics, and she really is a sweet and sensitive girl that hates when people have their feelings hurt.

On Saturday at the airshow she would stretch across the whole blanket, only to get up immediately and make room for Mr. Y and then curl up against him. Once he moved, she would immediately stretch back out across the blanket. This became the theme of the day-seats got saved for him, his hand was always taken, and although I no longer feel so weird about it, it can get a bit wearing to always be confronted with: "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy sit here!" and knowing that should I take up a bit of space it might upset her, which of course is absolutely what I don't want to do.

When Mr. Y would sit down with us, she curled into him, laying facedown on the blanket. When a plane flew over that we liked and would remark on, she'd pop her head up.

"Where's that one from?" she'd ask.
"That one's American." Mr. Y would reply.
"I don't like it." she'd reply, putting her head back down, rejecting it (apparently or possibly) due to its nationality.

I wondered if she was feeling particularly sensitive about something. I wanted to ask her about it, but thought maybe a bit of space is what she wanted-I know if I was a kid I wouldn't have liked being on the spot like that, questioned by a grown up, and had a grown-up questioned me I would've lied my teeth off and then felt even weirder around them. Mr. Y and I talked, and he told me something that made sense-in Sweden the English speakers are in two rival camps, the American English and the British English. Since she has a British father the British English is her allegiance (as it should be), hence her perhaps perceived dislike of American-ish things.

Melissa and Jeff had obviously been up way too late the night before and were a bit touchy, at each other's throats, a bit snarly, and in general really needed to be kept in their opposite corners for the day. Sometimes I didn't like how she treated him, but then again, I don't always like how he responds either-more than once I was the recipient of his anger when he was furious with Melissa.

In case I have said something clumsily, let me be clear-I am not having a go at Melissa in any way. I honestly think she can be a sweetheart, and quite a few times we got on incredibly well (including a discussion of how one of our favorite foods, asparagus, makes your pee smell. I love kid conversations). Melissa is very much a Daddy's Girl (which I simply have to get used to, albeit get used to it with absolutely no experience or history of it from my own past). Melissa and Jeff bait each other with supreme skill (I witnessed Jeff having a go a few times-I like him, but man he can be a handful) and this is what siblings do, after all. I know-I used to have one. My God, sometimes we could be vicious to each other-I remember throwing an entire shelf of tupperware cups at my sister one day. But that's nothing-one day she threw steak knives at me. That's right. Steak knives. So this is, I know, how kids act, have acted for centuries, and will always act.

At one point, Jeff turned to me while he was draped across my back, my own personal Batman cape.

"Helen, what are you?" he asked.
Looking up at the sky, watching an airplane loop around, I replied absently "I'm supercool, Jeff."
"No, I mean, what are you to me and Daddy?"
SNAP! went my attention to Jeff. So it was this discussion. I was wondering if it would come up.
"Well," I said carefully but acting nonchalant. "I am your daddy's girlfriend."
He thought for a minute. "So what does that mean for me?" he asked finally.
"You have a Mummy and a Daddy that love you very much." I replied, still acting calm but inside a riot of emotions. "I'm your good friend. I care about you and want you to be happy."

He thought for a minute.

"That's good." he finally replied. "I think I need a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or someone that will watch Atlantis with me."
"I can watch Atlantis with you, if you want."
"Ok. That's ok then." he replied.

End of discussion.

Sunday afternoon Melissa and Jeff chill out on the sofa watching Starsky and Hutch and I busy myself tidying up, doing laundry, being the standard domestic goddess. I get out the blender and whip up a comatose-inducing sugar combo of Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream, Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream, milk and Maltesers (that's Whoppers to my people). I serve Melissa and Jeff and am met with extreme appreciation.

Mr. Y and I take them to the airport, and wait in the queue (line) to check Jeff in (Melissa had an e-ticket). Jeff and I are busy fucking around, joking and being a general nuisance while Melissa is draped on an increasingly angry Mr. Y (he hates queues. With a passion.) I hug Jeff.

"You need to give your Mummy and your budgie lots of cuddles when you get home." I tell him. "I bet they've both missed you terribly."

Hey-I may not like the woman much (and I know the feeling is mutual), but I know she loves her kids and probably missed them badly.

Jeff turns to me. "I like Daddy's American girlfriend." he says with authority.
"Well thank you. I like his half-English, half-Swedish son." I reply.
"I think American girlfriends are cool. But so are Swedish girlfriends and English girlfriends." he says hastily.
"I see. And Australian girlfriends?" I ask.
"Yeah. They're ok." He says, shrugging.

When we take them to the gate, it's hugs all around and I even get a hug from Melissa. Jeff squeezes me tightly and plants a kiss on my cheek.

"I love you. Do you love me?" he asks.
I squeeze him until he squeaks.
"I love you." I reply.

-H.

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July 26, 2004

Da' Plane! Da' Plane!

Saturday morning we get vaguely back on track as Melissa and Jeff show up, along with Mr. Y's stepfather, Mr. Y's brothers Alex and Sam and Alex's eldest daughter Ida. We trooped off to the Farnborough Air Show, with Mr. Y, Alex and Sam skitsy with excitement. Jeff came up to me and spent his time with me from then on, which made me happy, but I know it's not really due to any kind of lingering love of me, rather that I am child-friendly. I don't mind. He's hilarious and I'll take whatever crumbs I can get.

At the air show we set up a blanket near the runway, making sure the take-offs of the F-16, F-18, Saab Gripen, and Harrier thump into our chestbones and drag our throats out. It's thrilling, I love the sound of it. There's nothing like the roar of a massive aircraft to make you feel you have swallowed your throat inside out. I sat on the blanket, in the sun, usually with Jeff hanging on me in some way, Ida taking up space, and Melissa draped across the blanket.

The air show finished up and we went for a walk around the exhibits, Melissa taking up Mr. Y's arm and the planes taking up his attention. Walking past the American C-130 and the flight crews, waves of memories returned. As a child, with a military pilot father, we used to go to masses of air shows. Masses.

I remember one in particular, my mother pushing my sister in an orange umbrella stroller, my father striding tall with his camera at his side. Something happened at one airplane, tensions went insane, the sun got too hot to hold and my father strode off angrily. I turned and looked at the wing of the little military plane and saw a woman, laughing in the sun, long black hair. It dazzles with silver light in my memory, too much to remember anything in my mind besides the reflecting light, but I learned afterwards that the woman was one of my father's ex-mistresses.

I wonder how my mother felt that day.

The flight crews talked and laughed with attendees of the show, and I heard their voices, deep and even-vowelled. Others in my group made fun of the Americans (not Mr. Y) and asked me if I could do an "American to English" translation for them. I ignored them, but you know what? I was so homesick at that moment that I could've cried (and am now, actually). For just a moment I could've let my guard down and just spoke, not caring that I have the broad American accent. I could've talked to them about their airbases, use terms from the military that sit on dusty overlooked shelves in my brain. This was a part of my past here, people that I can relate to, and all I wanted to do was just stop missing the U.S. at that moment.

I can never go home again.

At least I can holiday there (and we are planning to in October).

I walked on, holding Jeff's hand, following the English posse that I was somewhat a part of.

Alex and Mr. Y have a deep love affair with a certain plane called a Vickers VC10. This plane is only owned by the RAF (note to self: I made a joke with someone here that my father was also in the RAF. They said: Really? And I replied innocently: Yes, the REAL Air Force! This was not popular and not to be repeated.) So much so that when a VC10 did a fly-by, the two of them were giddy with excitement.

But that was nothing.

Turns out a VC10 was there.

So of course, after the air show we headed for it. It was ringed off by a row of fences, and another man was standing there in awe. Now this man is what is called here in England an "anorak". An anorak of course is one of those waterproof rain jackets, the kind that plane spotters, train spotters and (ohmigod how sad and considered the lowest of the low in spotter hierarchy) bus spotters wear. Spotters, unlike the movie involving screwball Scottish heroin junkies, are a tame crowd. I read a book that discussed it-a spotter does anything from just noting what type of transport they are watching to needing to record serial numbers.

Dude. Serial numbers.

And I think I'm a bit nutty?

In general, a spotter is armed with a green fluroescent safety vest (a la construction workers-in Europe they're green. In the U.S. they're orange), a notebook, binoculars, a notebook (for recording info) and if they're of the train variety, a handy copy of the National Rail Enthusiast's guiebook, and the standard issue jacket-think Member's Only.

This man fit the bill, and I was a little worried he was going to orgasm all over the fence.

We walked on when, lo and behold, a pilot came out of the VC10 and was escorting the insanely happy spotter up the ramp into the VC10! Well, Mr. Y and Alex started racing to the ramp, children in tow. The pilot came out and explained he couldn't really do tours, but Mr. Y pulled a Puss-In-Boots cats expression, and the pilot came back for us later. Alex and Mr. Y were in a state of near catatonia with happiness, and when the pilot came out for us, they fired off lots of questions. Mr. Y's stepfather and I hung in the back, while Mr. Y and Alex learnt all they could about their fave plane.

I don't blame them a bit-if I ever got David Sedaris here, after all, I'd get him drunk and demand he tell me funny stories. I love history. I love reading about cultures and tribal rituals. We all have our own interests and different strokes for different folks, after all. I know they like planes, just as Mr. Y knows I like writing. We all have different things we get excited about. The good news is, he doesn't have an anorak or a notebook for recording things nor does he plan to (but his brother Sam is reaching that stage. I really think it's the point of no return.)

And I loved loved loved seeing Mr. Y happy like that.

I talked to a Yorkshire ground crew man for a while, seeing as there wasn't enough room for me in the cockpit with all of Mr. Y's family and extended family in there. I learnt a lot about the redundancy of the wings, the type of work a VC10 does, and how much the man enjoyed his work. He pointed to my troop, dizzy in the front flight deck.

"They're happy, it seems." he said.
"Yeah." I said, smiling. "Wet dreams all around."
He laughed so hard he choked. "I can't believe you said that!"

The good news is, I got lots of sun. Sun in England. I sat in it, sunblocked up to my eyeballs (it didn't work, though) and just enjoyed the thrill of the sound of the jets, the smooth movements of the 747, the utter delight of Mr. Y and Alex over the VC10, and the soft blanket beneath my legs.

Don't believe me about the sun?

View image

View image


-H.


PS-I'm a cheerleader for Rocket Ted's Blogger Bowl! Go Ted!

PPS-Jim's turned 1. And you know how I love Jim

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July 23, 2004

Will You Remember?

Wednesday I took the train and then the tube into work, clipping along in my high heels in hopeful optimism that the sun would come out from behind the rain.

I don't generally mind the commute, I like to watch and look at people, not to mention the amount of reading I get done on the way in. I think I pay more attention when I am headed home, since generally I get a bit stressed up about time, wanting to get there early to hog a LAN connection for email and my blog. But on the way home, I open my eyes and take a look around at what there is around me, the people, the adverts, the sights, the smells.

Wednesday, on the tube, I stood by the door, near the joints of the cars. At the back of each tube car is a glass door that, in theory, leads to the next tube car. No one walks between these but you can open the window, allowing air to whoosh down the car and ease the heat of congestion. Although the sun wasn't out, the day was warm and the tube car was stuffy. Next to me was a man in a purple checked shirt, cufflinks the shape of faucet taps, and from time to time he would reach an arm up and draw it across his beaded forehead, revealing small circles beneath his arms.

I stood by the open window of the car, and once the tube started moving, the air flew in, ruffling my hair and smelling of carbon and dark. The air was refreshing, and I turned and saw each person in the car subtly raise their heads, not even aware that they were seeking the fresh air themselves but triggered by an instinct to have the caress of cool.

I looked up at the side of the tube car, and saw a new advertisement. Generally I don't pay too much attention to the adverts in the tube or tube stations, they tend to be "Call Australia for as little as 2p a minute!" or "Buy a DVD for £49.99!" But this one struck me, and I'm not sure why. It was bad marketing, to say the least-I can only remember the main line and not the product, but it was something to think about.

The tag line in the ad was: Is today a day you're going to remember for the rest of your life?

After I got through counting the letters in the ad (I count letters in signs, a knee-jerk reaction to my craziness) I thought about the ad.

Is today a day you're going to remember for the rest of your life?

Well...was it?

Getting off the tube and clipping along the train platform, the ad still played in my mind. My day that day wasn't extraordinary, it was an average day. The day before hadn't been extraordinary, either, although there were aspects that were a bit different.

What has to happen to have a day that one remembers the rest of their lives? Meeting "the one"? Having a baby? Losing their job? Having a family member die? What constitutes such a day? And if the point of having a day like that is to make sure we make all of our days special, does that mean we will run out of brain-space, that the memory will be used up remembering things like the best-curry-I've-ever-had or the-night-I-spit-coke-out-of-my-nose-from-laughing-at-that-show?

I don't know what it takes, but although the ad failed in that I don't remember the product it was promoting, I do remember the line. And it has me thinking that maybe I don't appreciate enough things around me, or maybe I am not paying enough attention.

Is today a day you're going to remember for the rest of your life?

-H.

PS-you wouldn't believe it-the sun is up. Seriously. And it's warm-as in shorts-wearing weather. It's fabulous, almost orgasmic, to know that the sun is all mine today. Today is working from home (and Mr. Y downstairs working from home) and tomorrow is the Farnborough Air Show with Mr. Y, his kids, and his two brothers.

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July 22, 2004

Gasp-a Political Post

I have a new man in my life.

His name is Godfrey Bloom.

And perhaps I should clarify-I have a new man in my life that I hate more than I hate getting razor burn on my bikini line.

I really don't get that interested in English politics, like I really didn't get that interested in Swedish politics because, frankly, if I can't vote and have a say then I figure why expend energy in trying to absorb all of the issues. But Godfrey Bloom has wound me up more than a grandfather clock at Madame Tussaud's, and I want something done about him.

Godfrey Bloom is a politician (no wait-it gets worse). He is a member of UKIP, which stands for the UK Independence Party, a party with a rather singular platform-to get the UK out of the EU. That's fine and dandy, whatever blows your skirts up, I can see pros and cons for being in the EU, but we can go ahead and have a party for it (not that kind of party.)

But Godfrey Bloom said this on Wednesday:

"No self-respecting small businessman with a brain in the right place would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age."

And guess what? He's the UKIP's representative for Women's Issues.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I am feeling anything but fine.

I beg your pardon, Godfrey Bloom? Have you taken a look around the workplace lately? I have noticed both in the UK and in Sweden that the males in the room fuck off around 4 pm everyday-essentially when child care closes down. And in Sweden, the paternity leave can be just as long as the maternity leave. Those of us without kids often get to stay late and keep working-to be clear, that's both the childless men and women who stay late.

And what about women like me? Women who are of childbearing age but cannot/will not/do not want to have children? OK, so I am hoping to remedy that, but I know quite a few women that opted clean out of the baby ring. Are you saying that just because they're still menstruating they're out?

What about older women that have babies? Cherie Blair, for example, had her baby at age 46. Or perhaps she doesn't count since her hubby is a Prime Minister and can bring home the bacon for the family? Now that IVF and fertility drugs have opened doors for childless couples, it's not uncommon to see women having babies in their mid-40's.

So, Godfrey Bloom, with that in mind, are you really saying that women between the ages of 16 and 50 shouldn't work at all?

Godfrey Bloom took up his position as he says:

"I just don't think they clean behind the fridge enough".

"I am here to represent Yorkshire women who always have dinner on the table when you get home. I am going to promote men's rights," he added.

Right.

Well, Godfrey Bloom, perhaps if you didn't make your wife serve your meal on top of the fridge, then you wouldn't have to clean out behind it so much. Act like a pig, eat like a pig, I always say. You can check behind my fridge-it's pretty clean. But then, I have table manners, so that's a big help.

Here's a news flash, Archie Bunker. By saying that we should have your dinner ready deingrates the promotion of the new nuclear family, a more cooperative effort that doesn't see the average housewife secretly downing martinis before her man comes home and bonking the milkman just to get a little lubrication out of her life. If my man's dinner is ready before he comes home, that's because I want to cook and want to cook for him. It's not because I am told to. And I'd like to see the end result of a man who tries to order me to clean out from behind the fridge.

You might find his testicles hanging back there like a rearview window car deodorizer.

I work with a few Yorkshire lads, and they tell me Yorkshire men:

1) Come from God's country
2) Don't pronounce "H's" in place names, so "Halifax" becomes "Alifax".
3) Are so cheap they won't give you the steam off their piss.

But nowhere do they say that Yorkshire men are caveman-dwelling, misogynistic assholes. They omitted that part. So maybe Godfrey Bloom's "unga-bunga" 1950's attitude is not a good representative for Yorkshire men.

Godfrey Bloom also says:

"...equal rights legislation was actually putting women out of work, adding that MEPs had "little or no business experience" and did not understand the consequences of their actions."

Yet on the radio interview I heard him give, he said that the men's legislation was "understood and the norm". They didn't need legislation as that's the way business should be run. They are the standard, ergo women working must be the exception, the "abnormal", if you will.

So you do want women out of the workplace, then.

From my perspective, it's the cost of doing business if you want to own or run your own business. Women need to take maternity leave? Sorry-that was a risk you should've assumed beforehand. You want to champion the small businessman and protect them from the hordes of breeding women, Godfrey Bloom? OK. Mr. Y's father owns his own business, and his number 1 guy is about to take off on sabbatical for one year to sail around the world, leaving Mr. Y's father's business screwed. Where do you see yourself protecting that businessman?

Or does it not count as "protecting men's rights"?

But he's worked with women before. As a champion for women, he was severely taxed mentally and physically in his support for the Cambridge University ladies' rugby team.

"After the 2003 Varsity match, he praised the victorious Cambridge 'girls', stating that while some might think them 'manly', they actually 'scrub up very nicely'."

Right. Thank God you survived that nightmare to go on and be such a public figure.

Trust me, Godfrey Bloom, the glass ceiling is very much still in place. I know, I've smacked it a few times. And you want to play the game about women of childbearing age not working? Fine. Let's see what happens to your economy. Work it that way, and you're going to need the support payments from the EU you're so desperately trying to seperate from.

The paper goes on to say:

"The new MEP's wife, Katie, was unavailable for comment last night."

Hopefully, she was busy at her solicitor's filing divorce papers. Or buying poison from the shop to spice up his ready-for-you-darling lamb dinner on the table. Or bonking the milkman.

If you'll excuse me now, I'm going to make some breakfast. It'll take me a while to get downstairs, what with my childbearing hips and all.

-H.

PS-Read more here and here.

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July 21, 2004

One Moment in Time

It's the little moments I like.

- When Mr. Y brings me up a cup of coffee in the morning, snuggled in bed, and allows me to take a few moments to get myself alive again, ignoring my sour milk morning breath and brillo-pad bed hair.

- When my eyebrows are perfectly plucked and looking good.

- Knowing that I have a holiday coming up. I'm one of those that makes lists of things I need to take with me, and also one of those that like to cross off said items from my list.

- Feeling the arch and pull of the muscles in my thighs when I wear cute girlie fuck-me strappy shoes. Like I am wearing again today.

- Sunshine smacking me on the shoulder-blades and back, dripping down my face and neck.

- Wearing a ponytail. I think I never want short hair ever again.

- Watching people on the train and on the tube. Seeing a long-haired, hippy type man, all copper bracelets and headband, an aging lover of Woodstock and the Eagles, who whips a cell phone out of his pocket and starts discussing share prices. A young woman with a januty belt sat snugly over a tiny exposed stomach, reading a paper and balancing with one arm against a bar. A shy Indian woman, watching the passengers of the tube with what looks like wary eagerness.

- Watching my flowers bloom, and knowing that more will come.

- When Mr. Y made breakfast and served me mine first yesterday.

- Having a warm purring cat snuggled in my arms or on my lap. A cat that trusts me, loves me, needs me.

- Watching "Have I Got News For You" on tv. Even the old ones.

- Reading something or getting a comment from someone that tells me that for one second, I popped outside the "Crazy Helen" bubble and met someone that understands and knows what I feel about something, too.

- That Mr. Y's step-mother, a woman shunned by his family, was the first person in his whole extended family to take a picture of me yesterday, maybe as a sign that she thinks I am going to be around for a little while.

- Falling asleep in bed with either Mr. Y's arm around me and the smooth silk of his perfect cock curved against my lower back. Or with me lying behind him as he reads, my arm just above the arc of his pelvis, with his warm heat oozing over my wrist.

- Understanding and saying the right things. I wish it could happen more.

-H.

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July 20, 2004

Whatcha' Dreamin' About?

It's funny the way dreams affect us.

This morning, both Mr. Y and I are struggling to shake off the cobwebs of our subconscious after we pass a night of Kafka dreams (again, I call all bad dreams Kafka dreams, they don't have to be the ones where a giant stick insect that is your father is trying to bite your head off).

Mr. Y dreamt all about his divorce settlement last night (his divorce should be finalized within a month, I think, and it hasn't gone so smoothly thus far). So this morning, thanks to his clever technical capacity and his need for a java infusion, he is surfing the web from his wifi laptop in bed, reading about divorce settlement sites and for a good local pub where we can have lunch with his kids, his father, and his stepmother (they are driving down to have lunch with us. I am, indeed, moderately nervous).

I dreamt all about aliens, panic, stress, and fear, topped off by the appearance of a guy I work with that has been flirting with me and has Mr. Y on guard (and no, I haven't been flirting back with him).

You think that when you sleep, it's all supposed to be so restful, but the truth is half the time I get a lot of torture throughout the night. I used to keep a dream journal, but that was thrown into the fireplace in the Great Helen Purge of Winter 2003, so maybe I need to invest in a new one.

I have always had problems at night. I've never been a bed-wetter, but name just about anything else that's on the border of Fucked Up Land, and I have done it. Most of my life I have suffered from a type nightmares so advanced that head doctors have a specific name for them-"night terrors".

Nice. I'll see your "screwed-up" and raise you a "nut job".

Sometimes my dreams are brutal and graphic, and they stay with me forever. Once I dreamt that I had to rescue children, I was running through the forest with my arms cut by the bitter leaves off the trees, puffing and heaving my way through, desperate to find the children. I reached a big awful house and ran around to the back, where I saw a pond. In the pond, curled into fetal position, were dozens of drowned children. I was bereft and in utter despair.

To say that lake scene in "Lord of the Rings" freaked me out is an understatement.

Sometimes the dreams are graphic and violent, sometimes they are stressful and emotional-once I dreamt Mr. Y dumped me and announced he was going back to his wife...but he did it via conference call with all of Company X. But all of my dreams involve me running from something horrible, and/or needing to rescue children.

My therapist told me that some people think that dreams are the subconscious trying to tell you that there are unresolved issues. That the rescuing children issue stems from something in my childhood, as does the running bit. That maybe the Kafka stems from something inside that I am not dealing with.

Then again, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Maybe the truth is, I simply have a wild imagination.

Sleepwalking? Done that. Talking in my sleep? Check. Battled the person next to me in bed? Yup, that too. Night terrors, crying and screaming? Indeed.

But-get this-sometimes I also sing or laugh. Or act out things that had happened.

Seriously.

For instance-one night when I was with Kim, we played Scrabble. Now, Kim and I used to love Scrabble and I-being a typical Type-A personality-hated to lose. Hated it. So sometimes the game got heated. Anyway, that night it got really contentious and in a moment of pure and perfect maturity, I threw the board across the room.

It took us forever to find all the pieces.

I can be such a dumbass.

Anyway, that night I dreamt I had found the missing "E" tile, as the dog had scooped it up and was trying to eat it. I was wrestling the dog to get the tile out of his mouth, when I heard:

"Eeeunnnnh!"

What?

"EEEEEUUUUNNNNHHH!"

It was then I realized that I had been dreaming, and I had rolled over, pried open Kim's jaws and was digging around in his mouth for the "E" tile.

Sleeping with me is such a hazard.

Luckily, I have a nice man now to help me deal with it.

-H.

PS-This is Petunia, a perfect cat who lives nearby. Petunia was called "Mental Cat" by us until we got to know him. Petunia has some unusual eyes, and on his front paws he has an extra toe, and on his back paws he has two extra toes. When he walks, he veers to the left and always has to tilt his head. It turns out Petunia had a stroke at birth, and he's a bit special. But after getting to know him (and his very sweet and loving owners), I am wildly in love with him. He comes into our house, where I feed him and dote on him. I think he's fabulous. I hope my girls like him, when they come in 4 and a half months.

Petunia:

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Petunia and I:

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July 19, 2004

Childhood

This weekend has been both very difficult and ridiculously easy.

Melissa arrived very late on Friday night due to a delayed plane, all rumpled hair and gentle snarl. The plane had largely been empty, but she had spent two weeks at camp and then hopped the last plane to England, so to say she was tired was an understatement.

She also was not interested in speaking to me.

I was bereft but acted like everything was ok.

Somehow, it worked.

Saturday afternoon we took a car trip down to his other brother's house, in Brighton. The entire family would be there (sans his father and stepmother, since they're about as close as my mother, father and stepmother) and again, the butterflies were settling in. I had printed out some pics of Mr. Y and his brothers and Mr. Y and Jeff, and put them in frames for Mr. Y's Mum. I don't really know that they were received with enthusiasm, but then again I've never given them gifts so have no idea how gifts are generally received anyway.

The house, owned by Mr. Y's brother Sam, his wife Jane and their daughter Jilly, was perched on a hill overlooking Brighton. It was a chaotic home of renovations ongoing, but you could tell that they really loved being there and owning it, that they were making a house into a home.

Mr. Y's Mum and Jeff arrived next, Jeff throwing himself into Mr. Y's arms before coming to tackle me. He then hung out with me the entire time, up until Mr. Y's other brother Adam showed up with his daughter, then I was the Velveteen Rabbit while Jeff and his cousin brought the house down.

But strangely Melissa, who by all accounts was surrounded by family she has known her whole life, started sticking closely by me. We made Shirley Temples. Played with cherry pits. Talked a lot. Suddenly I was ok and accepted, and I jsut acted low-key about it.

To say I was low-key inside though...well that's not true. It was like a fucking Fourth of July fireworks display going on inside.

Towards the end, Mr. Y's Mum wanted her 5 grandchildren together for a picture. Mr. Y and his brothers got their cameras out while Y's Mum posed them. Jilly, a sweetheart in every sense of the word, has these beautiful almond-shaped eyes, as Jane is actually from the Phillipines. Jilly is the half-Asian child I have always wanted to look like, creamy skin and stunning coloring. But she was not happy sitting there, and the tears started up.

Jane called out to her in Tagalog, and trying to be helpful, Mr. Y and his brothers picked it up, too. They called out to Jilly what Jane just said.

"Bopbop, Jilly! Bopbop!"

Jilly looked up, confused.

"Bopbop!" The men cried, flapping their arms. "Bopbop!"

Jilly gave up and started crying into her Lala teletubby. Jane was wheezing with laughter.

Turns out the men got it wrong.
As Jane then explained, tears of laughter in her eyes, bopbop has no meaning in Tagalog.

"Ah." said Adam. "Bopbop must be the infinitive."

We went home, and yesterday we trooped out to London for the day. It was a good day, a day that Melissa and Jeff said, in the end, was the best London visit of their life. In the London Eye, I helped Melissa find landmarks for the complimentary sticker book. Jeff's hand, when it couldn't find Mr. Y's, would head for me. At the Cyberworld 3D IMAX, Jeff and Melissa and I tried to look cool in our gargantuan 3D glasses, putting on posh accents, while Mr. Y tried to ignore us. We all talked and laughed a lot, and when we came home Jeff and I got spanked in Monopoly.

It's all still so fraught with emotion and tension, but for the first time, I have felt how nice it is to be a friend, to be ok. And I love the feeling, I think his kids are great kids, and I want them to always feel like they are welcome here, no matter what. Because they are.

No matter what.

In a quiet car ride to Brighton, Melissa absorbed in a DVD in the backseat (portable DVD players...babysitters of the future), Mr. Y and I talked.

He asked me about IVF in the UK.
I told him what I know.
He suggested we go ahead and put my name on the waiting list.

I wonder what's in the road ahead.

If you'll excuse me now-a waterpark and Shrek 2 have my name written all over it.

-H.

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July 16, 2004

I Went to the Meeting and Brought My Attitude, Too

Yesterday I had to do the usual troop into London for an afternoon meeting (luckily, I am only averaging having to head into London about once a week now). The sky was dark and grey, the world looked overcast, the sky had been soaking with falling rain, but you know what? I'd had enough of it. I've had enough of the rain and the gloom and the darkness, of the fact that my flowerbed is roosting with moss and lichen and from time to time we see some of the plehtora of snails on one of the windowpanes.

I wore a lemon-sherbert yellow skirt, a perfect number with a tiny pleat down the front and a drop-waist bow across the hip.
A black cardigan with a black satin tank top underneath.
And seriously wobbly and perfect fuck-me-these-are-girl-shoes strappy heels.

And it made all the difference.

Clipping along on the bridge over the Thames from Waterloo, my iPod in hand and my high heels smartly smacking the pavement, I noticed it. Stares. A lot of them. Men checking me out, watching my legs as I swiveled up the pavement.

So I decided to see how many of them I could get to smile at me. I would look them right in the eyes as I approached, and I would smile. Half of them would smile back at me, but ironically the other half acted almost embarrassed at being caught checking out my goods, and looked away.

And you know...I started to sway my hips just a bit. Try to set one foot down in front of the other. I perfected the "looking up from under a curl" look. I got smiles and even a few waves from bus drivers, construction workers, nervous-looking businessmen. And I'm no beauty, I'm not stunning...I think it was simply down to the fact that I felt good, ergo I felt I looked good. And maybe self-confidence is the sexiest thing a chick can have (does anyone bottle the stuff? Really?)

But this was something for me. With Soft Cell's extended version "Tainted Love" thumping into my eardrums, I realized that although I hate the weather so much I could wipe out whole villages, although I am a bit depressed and not sure how to handle things...well, at least I still look great in some killer heels.

Tottering into the office in my fabulous shoes and girlie skirt, I felt the banshee kicking in, albeit a banshee with more edge, more spirit. This banshee, instead of just being angry, was sarcastic and not up for any shit. This banshee punched a hole right into me, taking out the dark and grey and filling me up with sass all the way down to my strappy shoes.

And it felt fantastic.

Sally, head of Project Mangement, came up to me.

"Helen," she asks, walking behind me in the way that I hate, where people are standing behind you and able to see everything on your computer screen.
"Oh hi, Sally." I reply, trying to muster a smile. "I didn't know you were here."
"I just got here." she replied, shaking her hair out.
"Ah. Usually I know you're here as you're preceeded by your flying monkeys."
"What?"
"What?"
"What?"

And so it went. Sarcastic Cow banshee was out, and she was briliant.

Pat, another thorn in my side, sent me a stroppy email. I replied with blinding sarcasm but answered the questions that were put to me. Pete, a guy in our group who was cc:ed on the mail, came running up to me.

"That was brilliant!" he crowed. "What's on your mind?"
"Nothing, it's just every moment I spend having to deal with Pat is like having a Cesaerean section! I just want to tell him that I solved my action points, case closed, he can suck my rubber monkey butt."

Pete blinked, unused as he was to being around me when I take nouns and adjectives and twist them to my own evil devices, and then started laughing.

At the end of the day, I strode out of the building to a humid steambath. London had been drenched in a mid-afternoon downpour, and I stepped out onto the pavement, a soggy forgotten cigarette butt splitting beneath the toe of my strappy shoe. The air was thick with rain, and I felt it reach into my hair like a fistful and turn my hair into curls within minutes. I was glad the rain was finished, I needed the 20 minute walk to Waterloo, and I popped my iPod back in my ears again and clip-clopped my way to the station.

After arriving at my home station, I get off the train and see a familiar grinning face, my man decked out in a red striped shirt and grey shorts. I emerge out of the throng of departing passengers and head straight for him, and when I reach him he picks me up and twirls me around while I rain kisses on his face.

"Hi! Did you know I got lots of looks today? How does it feel to know that you have a cute girlfriend?" I ask, looking down onto his lovely mug.
"I already knew that one." he replies, and kissing me he puts me down and takes me home, to a house smelling of baked potatoes and lemonade, a house that would be wifi-working by the end of the evening, prompting a celebratory glass of wine and a good shag before bed.

The shoes are off now, my feet are up, and they aren't in any pain at all from being strapped into heels. And I tell you-I see the heels coming out again sometime in the very near future.

-H.

PS-Happy birthday to Tiffani and happy early birthday to Kat!
PPS-Wish me luck-Melissa is arriving tonight and Jeff is back with us tomorrow...after a barbecue with Mr. Y's family...

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July 14, 2004

To Blog or Not To Blog

If you look around, a stunning amount of bloggers are running headfirst into a wall, typed out, stressed out, burnt out. I've noticed most of the bloggers ran their blogs from a year to possibly many years in terms of length of blogging, and it seems people just felt that the demand of blogging was too much. I don't know if people just felt they were giving too much of themselves, not enough of themselves, if it took too much time, lost interest, or some other aspect.

Isn't it ironic that personal blogs are almost never in the top-listed most-visited blog lists? That people who put their life out to the world are beaten by people debating Republicans versus Democrats?

Ironic.

Can I be honest?

Blogging is sometimes not so easy.

Writing my blog is really easy for me. I just sit down and type, and all of the sincere mentalness and over-analysis of my life just comes right out. When something happens to me, I often think about writing about it-for me sometimes the complete fuckwittage that is my life makes just a bit more sense if I see it on the screen. Something comes out of my head, sometimes pre-thought of, sometimes not. Sometimes it's crap, and sometimes I make myself laugh. Sometimes I have a whole week of posts ready to go (I only post once a day, that's my shtick) and sometimes I have to sit and think for a minute.

But unfortunately, although my computer comes with a spell-checker, it does not have an incrimination checker, and that's a bit of software I'd like to get my hands on.

Whereas previously I would just write, consequences be damned, now I can't just disconnect my brain from my blog, I now need to read and re-read what I write, whittling it down to the least inflammatory that it can be. Whereas once my blog was a great big brain dump, now I have to be aware that what I write may hurt someone's feelings. Where once I would've written about the fact that something nasty was said to me a few weeks ago that still hurts, now I can't talk about it as the person in question would get attacked, he'd get angry, we'd get in a fight, and it'd all go downhill from there. And that's not even including the backlash I'd get from my family about some things.

To be honest, I understand this as it would be hard for me to know that I am being discussed in a one-sided fight just as it is hard for others. There is a person who is an important part of my life that reads this and is impacted by it, and so I have to plug my brain and my fingers back in together and make sure that one is not puppeted by the other, that what I say is what I mean. And I am not complaining about this. But I find to not blog about him is impossible-he is such an immense part of my life and my thoughts, so he (and my feelings for him) will tumble out onto the screen in a myriad of type and lust between the lines.

I have to make sure that the issues and things I discuss here are discussed at home, as well. And I agree with this-it would really hurt my feelings to know that Mr. Y and I had an issue between us that he hadn't discussed with me, but which he blogged about instead. I would want to be told about his thoughts, so I can relate.

The thing about blogging is, if a family member, spouse, significant other, or friend know about it, then automatically there goes the ability to just say what's on your mind with regards to your personal life. You have to think about it.

Dude, you threw up on Pete outside the bar while you were making out during your bachelorette party?
Sorry that you decided to break up with her? Really?
He HIT you? Are you serious?
You're gay? What?

And so on. But it all eclipses into one major response: And you felt you couldn't tell me?

My blog has caused a lot of problems in my life. I have no idea how many times Mr. Y and I have had to discuss it. My family is up in arms about it, and they remain the one area that I don't discuss on my blog, simply because I really don't think they need that kind of ammunition against my already heinous war crimes (apparently).

At the same time, Mr. Y knows why I started this blog (free therapy) and he knows why I continue (enjoyment ...and free therapy). He even found me through it. I take care to protect people in my life on my blog-the only person on this blog who has their real name is Kim, all others are covered with the pseudonym blanket. I'm not freaked out about someone following the clues I leave in my blog and tracking me down-I don't have that kind of appeal, I don't see why anyone would do it, and the world is so large I am pretty sure that no one around me reads it, anyway.

But I can see that maybe someday I may hang up the keyboard. Maybe I would be missed, maybe I wouldn't be-I am just one lone chick wrapped in a bundle of issues, hanging out on my little blogspace. Others have disappeared that I cared about a lot and will miss, others I just shrug and think: Oh well. What's for dinner? I won't disappear anytime in the near future-I love blogging and I love talking to people, comments, and thoughts-but I understand that blogging requires defining boundaries and having limits.

And that's something that I am crap at.

I have begun fleshing out my other writing.

Her name is Alice.

I hope so much for her future.

-H.

PS-To Odin Soli-what you are doing is now a mockery. You know what it's a mockery of? It's a mockery of all the people that used to read you. You may sit back from your desk, l;augh and say: That Layne. What a confused little fuck she is. Oh well, wonder what's for dinner. But for others of us, others that enjoyed Layne since she seemed so human and could relate to her problems, we are really the people you are mocking. I hope you enjoyed your little Creative Writing 101 class. Now, for the others of us that are real and are coping with our emotions and issues, please put the nail in the fucking coffin. Thank you.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:28 AM | Comments (33) | Add Comment
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July 13, 2004

The One

Mr. Y and I have had a bumpy, wild ride.

First we had each other many years ago, and then we didn't.

When you take a look at the "when we had each other", it all boils down to amazing coincidences, a ladder of things that happened in so precise a way that if they didn't happen, I might not be on this computer in our guest room overlooking Whitney Houston with a bouncy 7 year-old boy downstairs. My lovely Mr. Y might not be clad only in his robe with bed-hair and leaving me coffee kisses on my forehead. I might still be in Sweden, or dead, or any other amazing assortment of possibilities.

When I first met him we were sitting around a large conference table, him looking the epitome of business confidence and generally raising a fuss about any and every item that suited him. I zeroed in on him right away, and noted him not only as a native English speaker, but also as someone that I found very attractive. He was strong, assertive, thoughtful. Ironically, he also remembered me from that meeting-as being someone who was quiet, drank orange soda, and had a funny duck-shaped key ring.

We were friends for a long while, and all of it turned around in one night. In one night, a steamy sort of mystery-novel night in Bangkok, our whole worlds changed, and we both agree that Bangkok was the catalyst, and without it we would likely have never hooked up. In Bangkok at a massive Company X conference we talked. I decided to have a hot bath and go to bed, but he texted me and demanded my attendace at the blow-out bash. I agreed, and in my hotel room realized I only had a tiny pair of panties and a sundress left that were clean, and so flounced downstairs in those.

And when a group of us went bar-hopping later in a cheesy dodgy Thai girl strip bar area, where banks of tourists were, bouncing in business suits, hemp clothes, backpacks and open-mouthed wonder, it all came to a magnificent head in one single movement that-more than anything else in my history-I can confess changed my life.

Mr. Y took my hand as we got out of a taxi and crossed the busy street.

Electric, baby.

I felt the current throb through me so fast that I knew I would just die if he let go of my hand. It was the stuff that those bodice-ripping pirate romance novels are made out of. This one touch made me gasp and catch my breath and feel all fluttery inside.

Flash forward to now, years later. It's with irony that I can say that where I am today all begins with one moment, a moment that includes a text message and my hand being held. There is a lot more that had to come as well-Mr. Y and I developed a method of honesty between us that we call "glasnost", in which we try to never lie or conceal from each other. We learnt how to talk to each other. We learnt how to rely on each other, and for me, that was one of the harder ones.

I think that there isn't a "one" person for us all, more like a handful of people to whom we are ideally suited. I do think that people can be meant to be, in that the person that they really and truly are can only really be revealed when they are with this other person, that the other person is a catalyst of popping the cork out of the fake dating game bottle and letting out the real you, the one that wants to watch tv and eat pizza together.

Ask Mr. Y if we were meant to be, and he replies: "I don't believe in that crap."

Sentimental, my boy.

But now I look at the life I have, and the incredible difference to how I have always worked.

I sleep naked, and under one duvet (I am told that I hog the covers, however I am sure my delicate and dainty nature would preclude any such selfish subconscious actions).

I discuss money.

I don't get angry.

I open up the hinges inside of me and try to scrape out parts of me that will help with his children.

Sometimes it is all so terrifyingly hard-I am new to children and the sensitive territory that surrounds all child-like life, it's with fragile footsteps and worry that I approach them-will I accidentally say or do something that fucks them up the way I got all screwed up? I long for another cat, but that gets the kaibosh from Mr. Y. And dealing with our exes is far from easy on both our sides.

But falling into the study of our little house, the bed, and his heart?

Yeah...that's been easy.

-H.

PS-broadband is working, so late afternoon will see some high-speed surfing and emails!

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July 12, 2004

You're Among the Little People Now!

Jeff arrived early Saturday morning, a little blond boy amongst a crowded Heathrow airport. A text from Mr. Y's ex indicated that Jeff had been extremely agitated and upset, not wanting to go. Immediately, my heart squeezed in agony thinking that it was because of me, but Mr. Y waved his hand, patted my arm, and told me that Jeff was just likely nervous about flying on his own (but with constant supervision on the airline, as he is one of those with a name tag and a constant plastic smiling escort).

And it appears to be true-Jeff was just nervous. He came out of the baggage claim and customs with a dark blue wheelie bag embroidered with aliens and a nervous smile. Mr. Y's face lit up one thousand watts when he saw his son, and it broke my heart just a little bit-that he can't have his son around him all the time. That I don't know what it feels like to have my soul light up at the sight of my child. That Mr. Y has to miss them so much and there is nothing I can do to help.

Once I greeted Jeff, armed with a chidren's oozie juicy drink made with one part blackcurrent juice and twenty parts gelatin, he had a grin for me.

And we have gotten on extraordinarily well since.

Jeff, who is recently 7, is a riot. He's a little handful of 7 year old whirring about and one hundred miles per hour. He's a tiny skinny thing with the apetite of a rugby team, and we have spent masses of time discussing the merits of the Millenium Falcom versus the ship that Darth Vader (whom he calls the Dark Raider) has. That, and we have endlessly discussed the possibility of The Mummy visiting him at night-weirdly, Jeff is very keen to meet the movie monster as, in his words, he has "alot to learn from him".

I tried to scare Jeff when he was being naughty, only it backfired terrifically and now has become an elaborate plan. When he was acting up, I told him I was going to ship him to Germany (not because I am anti-German, but because the plane he was on to Heathrow then was scheduled to go to Germany). Strangely, if you try to scare him, it doesn't work-tell him a monster is coming tonight, and he will reply "Oh. That's very interesting.", which sends me into giggles every time. Somehow, our Germany idea has become a fantastic plan, and now the idea is I will fold him up into a little paper clip, arm him with a day-old newspaper, a half-bottle of warm orange juice, and one single Lego, and ship him to Germany in a box. He loves this plan.

I think he's hilarious.

Saturday night something unusual happened-he wet the bed. He never does this, so Mr. Y was nervous. Did it mean he was unhappy? Had a lot on his mind? Upset? Or just so deeply asleep he couldn't hear his body telling him it had a weighty issue? Jeff was horrified and upset it happened, but Mr. Y and I acted like it was no problem, that we just love washing enormous bulky futon covers and that it was absolutely part of a normal day, and we held our breath last night-but this morning, in a race to get out of bed and in front of Cartoon Network on the plasma, we saw that he was just fine. He likely was just sleeping too deeply.

And I love this, as it means he is not stressed or upset. And all I want is for the kids to love visiting their father, to love being here.

Yesterday we went to Brooklands, a museum of old racing cars and airplanes (including a final resting place for one of the Concords). Jeff and I amused the hell out of ourselves sitting on old BAC 1-11's and pretending to call the attendant for some juice and buiscuits. Today we are off to Portsmouth, to view old warships and try to dodge the heavy pregnant raindrops that tumble out of the sky. Jeff leaves tomorrow for 4 days (before he is back again) to visit his grandparents. He's exhausting, but I love the kid. We sit on the couch, him holding my hand, my foot, or flat out laying on top of me, and watch TV. I get requested to tuck him in.

Again, I know this isn't parenthood. What I am exposed to is the easy part. I know I am not remotely his parent, never will be, and honestly don't want to be. I know being a parent is one million things more, and a lot more difficult, but you can sign me up for a Honey Nut Cheerio smelling hug anyday.

-H.


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July 09, 2004

Upgrading Helen

My blood results came back normal, which then leads me to have to question why I am so seriously tired, so cold, and dealing with the intermittent bleeding.

Things seem to have been changing in me and with me, and I don't really know what that means. Is it good? Is it right? Is this the real me or yet another variant of Helen? Is this the upgrade I have been looking for, the Helen 2.1.A version, the one with the corrective patches?

Since Life 6 has begun, I have radically changed. With the exception of an occasional banshee visit, I am not so angry anymore. At all. Little things don't irritate me and I am no longer more impatient than the Porn King at a Playboy bunny party. I really am calm, low-key (and God it feels so good to not be so angry all the time). I don't have so many complaints, simply because...well...I have been so happy here in this new life. I have this gorgeous house in a lovely country, a good job with a great company, and above all a man that I can't seem to keep my hands off of.

But sometimes I need to be angry. I no longer find it easy to state what I want, what I need. After an event gone wrong, it seems I've reached down my throat and ripped my voice box out. I have taken my voice was taken away from me-I no longer have opinions. It's whatever anyone else wants, I am the second (or third, or fourth or not even on the list) in this equation. I am so busy running around trying to make sure that others are happy that I don't even know what I want. This, of course, was noticed by Mr. Y and I was encouraged to bring back my desires and wants.

I just don't know where they've gone.
I can't find my internal list anywhere.
Not even my emotional reminder post-it notes.

I seem to limit my wants to the little things....I want a glass of Sprite. I want some pizza. I want to hang the laundry out to dry. The big wants, which I know must be in there, hanging out, waiting to get attention...I just can't hear them. I get nigglings of ideas of things that want out...I want another cat. I want to be in the sun so badly it makes me cry. I want to write. I want to stop feeling so squirmy when it comes to understanding the implications of everything going on.

But then they go away again and I am not sure if I really felt them or if I stubbed my toe on some other idea.

The truth is, maybe it is simply not possible for me to have a normal life and be happy. Maybe it's out of my reach, it is not meant for me. I don't get to do the football and ballet carpool, my holidays will always be on somebody else's turf. Perhaps I am one of the fucked-up few that get a life of drama and wandering, a queasy unadaptable sort that can handle a trashcan full of tampons but not the element of security that I have been chasing after all this time.

Sitting on the bed with Mr. Y this morning, we both voice what we've been wondering in the tiniest back of our minds.

Maybe I am tired...because I am depressed. And have been since our weekend in Cornwall. And I don't know why.

For the first time in my life, perhaps the depression has switched from psychotic insomnia to being unable to stay awake, as though 29 years of insomnia have hit me at one thousand miles per hour, straight into the heart, and finally it's taking its toll. It's not a depression of the magnitude that last winter was, where I was unable to bathe, leave the house, eat food, or do anything but sit on the chair, covered in blankets, lost in the deep black suffocating snow of Stockholm.

I'm just a bit blue.

But maybe I know a way out of it.

I had an idea about something-a story that is partly based on something I know about, and partly based on how I could've seen it happening. Dream Job workload is very calm right now, ad I have spent a lot of time in my head thinking about my story, so maybe today I start writing. And the thing is...now I can hear it. I can hear it unfolding, in fits and bursts, in dialog and description. It's becoming real, or I am getting crazier, but it pops into my mind from time to time, whispering of what it needs to become.

Maybe nothing comes of it.

But it's a start.

Tonight Best Friend is arriving to spend the night with us-I see curry and many pints in our future. And tomorrow, Mr. Y's son Jeff is arriving. Jeff (age 7) will be with us for 4 days before going on to stay with Mr. Y's family for 4 days. Melissa arrives next Saturday, and we then have them both for a while. I am not nervous about Jeff-maybe because he is younger and less sensitive to the twittering antennae of the adults, and because he and I get on well. But I can't say that I will stay un-nervous about the continuing times.

Maybe that comes in the next upgrade to the Helen software package, version 2.2. I understand that package will let me re-set the defaults, which is a good move, since I think they're ready to be changed.

-H.

PS-Feel a bit nomadic? There's a new web ring that I can recommend for just that -No Roots. Not just for expats, I think it's for anyone that ever felt their skin wasn't the place they wanted to be in.

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July 08, 2004

Reforming the Heathens

When I was at university in the U.S., I was not your typical student. I worked my way through, I took masses of classes in order to finish on time, and I studied courses which I found interesting. I mean, far be it from me to take classes that could actually prove useful as an adult-I didn't elect accounting or architecture, which could have proven useful in a serious field of work. Oh no. I took anthropology. Epidemiology. Evolution. French. And Russian.

In fact, I took intensive Russian, which was 4 hours of Russian every morning for 2 years. I used to be very good and, I was told, mimicked a native accent perfectly. Years on, and I know about as much Russian as a neighboring bowl of Borscht. How fortunate for me-I can say, with complete and native ease, "I studied Russian at university." Of course, that's all I can remember (although I can still read the Cyrillic alphabet), so hopefully no one ever challenges me on that one, they will simply stroke their chin, nod wisely and say: "Ah...I see."

I was with the same group of students the entire time, a little potluck of students all taking Russian for their own reasons. Mine? I wanted to impress a guy (it worked). There was an Englishman in there who simply wanted to learn more languages. A young perky American chick who had married a Russian man and wanted to be able to talk to her mother-in-law.

And then there were The Others. The Others, a group of 4, were only taking Russian for one reason-they wanted to go to Russia and convert the heathen masses to Christianity. The Others were three men and one woman. They were not easy to talk to (especially with me as an anthropology major) and believe it or not, one of them said "Amen" a lot. He also said "Fudge!" when he got something wrong in class.

And I thought that only happened in stories from the 1950's.

The Others would go over to Russia during the summer and spring breaks, funded on a fantastic budget by their local Southern Baptist churches, in order to spread the word. They felt they had to save the masses, you see. They wanted to convert the unwashed. And they would go over to Russia with cases and cases of Bibles, all of which were in English.

I'm not sure if you've been to Russia lately, but the English there, well it's generally not so good. And the Bible, with its intricate language, is difficult for even the natives to read sometimes (yes, I have read it.) So a Bible in English probably got lots of use by the natives-holding up a wonky table leg, for example. For use as a paperweight.

The thing is, the Russians already have religion-they've been Orthodox up until they had it beaten out of them by Communism. Then the country experienced a surge in closet Orthodoxy, and now church is, apparently, back on the uprise again. So who the fuck are we to barge into their country, convince the Russians that they have a one way ticket to hell and throw Bibles in English at them? Why embark on a rescue mission for people that didn't need "saving" in the first place? Instead of funding an army of Christian soldiers to convert the damned-to-hell Russians, why not send the money to the famine victims in the Sudan? To helping the flood victims in Bangladesh? For aid for earthquake-ridden areas like Turkey?

I take massive umbrage at my people when they go barging into countries demanding that they accept their help, since my people only want to save them. Some places don't need saving. Some areas are just fine. There are masses of others that could use help-why not help them out?

It's happening again. The U.K. has just been besieged by a group of Americans from the Silver Ring Thing. Now, the Silver Ring Thing is an organization from the U.S. that is designed to help kids fight the evil that is sex. They are a religious organization, one with about 20,000 members and a strong backing from the government-abstinence organizations in the U.S. received over $120m from Uncle George, and the Silver Ring Thing got a $700,000 chunk of it.

I don't have a problem with an organization that has yet another method of how to help kids fight teenage pregnancy and STD. That's OK. Sex is a deeply involved issue, one that stays with you for life. As a teenager, I would've chosen to ignore them anyway, since their message is overwhelmingly one of guilt and the filth associated with sex.

I didn't lose my virginity until I was 18.
I did marry the guy.
And what a fucking mistake that was.

I have a problem with the fact that the American organization felt it so necessary to come spread the word of their charter here. Like the English are so out of control with their wild monkey teenage sex that they need preaching from another advanced society. The truth? The teenage pregnancy rate in the U.K. is the highest in Europe, but it is wildly below the U.S. And in Europe, the horrific connotations and negative implications that are associated with teen pregnancy in the U.S. are absent. No, it's not ideal. But it is accepted and handled.

I get so angry when various groups of American organizations descend upon Europe in order to try to "save" people (and said rescuees are often rolling their eyes). Do they really need saving? Who elected the American organization as a saviour? Isn't the world a lot more interesting if we have differences, instead of trying to force the same moral code on everyone? Why can't we accept that cultures and nations are different, and if we hate the way the English are having pre-marital sex, the way the Russians are worshipping, or the way the Italians shine their shoes, isn't the best option to simply not go there?

I was raised Catholic-I have your guilt here if you need it. I know what the church preaches about pre-marital sex and marriage and birth control. And I also have had sex, outside of marriage (just last night in fact). I think that sex between two people who really love each other is a thousand times better, a million times more rewarding, than picking someone up in a bar for a quickie (although that, of course, serves a physical need as well). I like to think that, because I have had a few partners, it has helped me learn what is pleasurable and enjoyable in bed. And I like that my guy has had partners before me, too-I don't feel he is, as the Silver Ring Thing would have me believe, "cheating on me" since he has had others before me. I like to think it has helped make him a better lover and has helped him appreciate me in bed more (especially that thing I do with my tongue. I hope he really loves that one).

By all means-have an organization to help teens prevent teen pregnancy and STD. I am all for that. But do something about your success rate-statistics show that abstinence campaigns do delay the outset of sex by 18 months, but that when they do have sex, one-third don't use protection. Maybe they should work on trying to save themselves, more.

But don't send troops over here. For those of us Americans that are over here, we have to explain to the natives why our people feel they need saving, why they are apparently lacking in something that only Americans can arm them with. And we're talking about the English here-a group not exactly known for their swing-your-pants lifestyle.

As for the Silver Ring Thing organization-well, hope you have fun in England. But there are some aspects that you may not be actually being honest with yourself about. I leave you with a quote from a newspaper article:

Under the Silver Ring thing's world view, condoms are ineffective and untrustworthy, oral sex is an epidemic out of control, and masturbation and homosexuality simply do not exist.

Right.

If that's the case, then I am absolutely infected with the oral sex epidemic (and I don't want to be cured of that one, either), and I am now going to retire to my bedroom to prove to myself that masturbation does, indeed, exist.

-H.

PS-a third skin has been added, my sincere thanks to my good friend for the incredible job that's been done.

PPS-Ilyka needs some help.

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July 07, 2004

Bambi Got My Mojo

Nothing from me today.

Bad cold.

Bad weather.

Bad day at the office.

Tired (and get severe side effects from iron pills, so though I agree I am anemic, I can't do much about fixing it).

No results from the doctor yet.

Uninspired.

Mojo hopefully back online tomorrow. Until then, if anyone needs me I will be in bed.

-H.

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July 06, 2004

Caged Love

Monday we spent quietly recovering from the barbecue and cleaning up. Mr. Y, although really hung over, was in good spirits. He decided to work from home and spent the day checking work mails from the comfort of the couch. I bounced around from checking mails, tidying up, and wondering about the meaning of life (which I haven't successfully concluded, I am sorry to say).

Mid-afternoon, my phone let me know I had missed a call-I had forgotten I had put it on mute so that it wouldn't disturb Mr. Y's throbbing head. I checked my voice mail, and I did indeed have a voice mail there, awaiting my absent-minded attention.

It was X Partner Unit.

I called him back.

"I need your keys to the house." he said, business-like.
"Oh yes! Sorry. I will send them to you now." I had been meaning to do this, but it meant digging them out of a box and I was being a lazy cow.
"Fine. Send them to me at Company X, not the house. I am moving next week."

I felt my head give a little chime inside.

"You are? You've sold the house?" I ask, a strong and vivid memory of the solid sweetness of my little white sugar cube house in Stockholm.
"I've sold it. I am moving into my new flat next week."
"Oh." I say, wondering what emotion I was feeling. "How much did you get for it?" I wasn't sure if he was going to tell me to mind my own business, since I had signed my half of the house over to him.
"Almost what we paid, but not quite."

The housing market had collapsed just months after we bought the house, a sign of recession and depression, a knock-back on the redundancies from Company X and a wheezing aching economy that saw more and more people off work from depression and stress. I never have any luck with real estate.

"Look, I need you to take the cats." he said. "What can you do about it?"
I felt my chest squeeze and compress thinking about my two girls, my black and white darlings that I miss on a daily basis.
"I can investigate what it means to put them in quarantine." I replied, and promised to call him back.

Some phone calls around the area and I talk to a woman who runs a quarantine kennel. She sounds like Maxine the chronic smoker, all choppy cockney consonants and a lifetime of gin and tonics running down the line, choking me with her lemon slice. She tells me what the costs are, to start with, and they are astronomical, running to about £600 pounds a month ($1100) until the end of November, and then she gagged out that it almost always runs over time. And their cages (cages! For fucks sake!) aren't heated, that would cost extra in the winter-it turns out their cages (!) are outside.

My girls have never been outside.

I can't imagine the terror they would be put through.

I call X Partner Unit back, feeling the hair on my head falling out over the horror of what is to come.

"Can we discuss this?" I ask, trying to keep my voice even. "They will have to be in a cage for 5 months, and it's outside."
I hear silence on his end, and then the sweet sound of acquiescence. "No, that's no good, I agree." he breathes, and I wonder what will happen next.
"Please- can they just stay with you until the end of November? I swear I want them, I swear I am taking them. Please?" I ask.
"I will take care of them. But you should know they are a huge burden and responsibility."
"I can send you money."
"I meant emotionally."
"Please. I am so sorry, I will take them first chance they can fly which is November 28th."
"Fine. I am just trying to get on with my life, my new life." He says, a bit sniffy, and I wonder if you can just pull the drain on love and watch it swirl out of the sink, into the gutter, into the rest of the garbage. A part of me hoped he would stay in that house, I saw it as a little oasis of security and calm for him, but I see I had it wrong.

Our neighbor Joe walks by in the evening, and Mr. Y beckons me to the door. Joe is carrying a little airport kennel, and inside are two perfect calico kittens, all enormous eyes and cotton candy fluff, tiny pencil erasers for paws and whiskers like soft knitting needles.

I fall apart.

Joe lets me hold one, and then I come inside for a back rub, only it's too late, I am all tears. I cry to Mr. Y, wanting to tell him simply how much I miss my girls and how worried I am that X Partner Unit will give them away, put them to sleep, resent them. I want to tell him this but it comes out wrong and I make a mess of it the way I always seem to make a mess of things, and we were a tiny bit stilted for a short while after that.

Maybe now Mr. Y won't point out cute kittens that he sees (I hope he does).
Maybe now X Partner Unit won't tell me what his plans are for my girls (I hope he does).
Maybe now I should just calm down about my girls and wait the remaining 5 months out (I surely will try).
Maybe tomorrow the doctor will call and tell me why I am so tired and cold all the time, why I went from a lifetime of insomnia to feeling completely wiped out all the time.

I wish I had answers, but the truth is, perhaps I should be wishing I knew what the questions were.

-H.

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July 05, 2004

Yankee Doodle Came To Town...

And left us with serious hangovers.

In fact, Mr. Y has only just emerged and he's not doing too well this morning.

The barbecue was a success, I am happy to say. We had a huge turnout, the food went over a storm, including Mr. Y's own recipe hamburgers and my homemade apple pie (it looked so good, I just wanted to take photos of it.), and the alcohol flowed like a river. Our homemade dips were demoloshed and the Delia Smith potato salad was gorgeous.

The potato salad was almost not made-you see, I have a bit of a beef with Delia. Delia Smith is England's version of Martha Stewart but without the weird arts and crafts, just the neuortic cooking. She has lovely recipes that border a bit on the obsessive (i.e. one of her recipes says: You must make sure all of the bowl is scraped clean!)

Right.

Anyway, Mr. Y mentioned that she had a summer cookbook, and it had 4th of July recipes in it. As in American 4th of July recipes. And this really wound me up-I mean, I have no authority to write recipes on a traditional English Christmas pudding. Nor can I write about a Swedish Julbord. Just because I have experienced them doesn't mean I am an expert. So where does this Delia Cow get off?

Mr. Y bought me the recipe book as a joke, and I admit it has some good stuff in there. But one of her suggestions for a 4th of July dish? A Cos, Weber and Rocket salad with blue cheese dressing.

Now, it wasn't until I moved here that I even know what Cos, Weber, and Rocket were. What American deigns to make a salad out of this at their 4th of July? Anyone? Isn't the traditional fare burgers, hot dogs, ribs, wings, chips, potato salad, dips, and pies or ice cream? I mean...really?

I called my aunt and uncle (my uncle is my father's brother) who live about an hour away, to discuss arrangements for them coming on Sunday, and talked for a long while with my Aunt Carol.

And I have to admit I was a bit glad that Aunt Carol couldn't make it.

Talking to her was a real trip.

She kept trying to reassure either me or herself that moving here for two years was the right thing to do. That this is an experience, that they should learn and grow from it. That they will enjoy their two years here and then never leave the U.S. again.

But she complained bitterly about the school system-my youngest cousin Mary attends a state school (public school in U.S. talk) and Nancy boards at a school in London that is only for the children of American servicemen. She is in a tightly controlled, thoroughly American atmosphere and only has to "deal with those Brits" as my aunt put it, when she leaves the base.

Those Brits?

They're not so bad.

My aunt and I talked a while, her venting mostly, and I found out the goings-on of my family. Namely, that some of them are coming here and I wasn't even asked to see them. Must be all that black wool I am covered in.

I don't think I could get any more ostracized if I tried.

My Uncle John and cousin Nancy showed. They were a bit late, but they showed. I haven't seen either of them in almost 10 years, and wow have they both changed. Nancy is tiny, and Uncle John is Army fighting fit. The last time I saw Nancy was in my Japanese grandmother's house, there were too many people there, she was annoying the shit out of me, and I was trying to figure out how I could slip her some her poisoned sushi.

I liked her right away last night.

She was bubbly and cute and eager. She was also completely submissive to my Uncle John. It was clear that things were run a certain way in their household, a way that makes me shudder. Someone offered her a beer, and my uncle barked that she was only 17-which would mean she can get a pint in England, but not in the U.S. Personally, I don't see the harm in her having one beer when she is with family-it sure beats her having benders when she is alone or with friends. And when she went for a piece of my apple pie, he admonished her.

"Nancy! Remember you have a weigh-in tomorrow. You don't need any of that." She immediately put the knife down on the side of the pie pan.

I felt my skin crawl and my blood boil. She has a weigh-in tomorrow? Is he for real? She's a girl, not a soldier. Cracks like that are what therapy was made to fix.

"Nance?" I asked. "The pie itself is low-fat. It does has quite a bit of sugar, but if you skip the custard, you don't have to feel at all guilty." She grinned at me, I grinned back, and she cut a small slice.

They left early on, with promises for us to all meet up. Mr. Y had spent masses of time talking to them and making them comfortable, so after walking John and Nancy to their car, we walked back to the real party hand in hand, me oozing gooey darts of love for this man who worked so hard on my barbecue, this man that I think my family would really like, if they ever took a chance to try.

The rest of the evening went great. At one point, the skies opened up and we dashed for cover under the gazebo that had been set up, but the party carried on. Mr. Y had strung lights everywhere, so as people made sure their wine didn't get wet, we trooped on under the lit gazebo and had a lovely time.

I got talking to one of my neighbors, a man named Rick. Rick is a grizzled and grumpy man in his mid-50's, who is so negative he makes Archis Bunker look like the skipper on the Good Ship Lollipop. He thought he could annoy me by making lots of Yankee jokes but when he saw that it didn't rattle my cage, he grinned, and told me I was acceptable. Then he told me about his last year, as he's been battling cancer (I think it's my face. I think I must have an honest face, and that's why people talk to me about their personal issues). His treatment is difficult and painful, and his next round starts up in September.

I listened to him, not commenting, while he talked about it. At the end, I smiled. "Well, if you feel like talking then, you can come over and talk to me."

"I don't need your pity!" he snarled.

"Don't be an asshole." I replied. "I'm not talking about holding your hand, for God's sake. I was just going to offer you a shot of whiskey if you needed it."

He looked at me. A smile went across his face. "You're all right...for a Yank."

High praise indeed.

The party went on until about 1:00 am. There were just 5 of us left, and we were three sheets to the wind by then. We were telling outrageously funny jokes, jokes so great they had our sides splitting. They were real corkers, like the following:

Q: What is brown and sticky?
A: A stick.

Right.

Seemed much funnier last night.

-H.

PS-Sorry Miguel. But I have to confess-I was cheering for Greece.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:30 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 1282 words, total size 7 kb.

July 04, 2004

It's the New Me

Like the new look? A fabulous non-blogging friend of mine spiced it up for me, and I am in their debt forever. I'd give them my soul, but I promised that to Satan years ago in exchange for some cherry flavored pixie sticks.

Hindsight and all that.

We are getting ready for our barbeque here, and you wouldn't believe it-my uncle and one of my cousins, who are based in England (he is in the U.S. Army and so they are stationed over in England for another year) are coming today. I haven't seen them in ten years (my other cousin and my aunt can't make it today, but we plan on meeting up in a few weeks time).

Finally, some family that hasn't disowned me.

God, I really hope it goes well today. I hope lots of people turn up. I hope it doesn't rain. I hope people have fun. I hope they like my homemade apple pie.

Happy Birthday, America.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:54 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment
Post contains 171 words, total size 1 kb.

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