June 30, 2005

I Sit and Hold My Fingers in the Moudra Position

In the office in London on Monday, I stood up and felt every single muscle in my legs screaming in agony along with me. I gingerly walked to the ladies' feeling about one hundred years old and walking with the grace of a stork on steroids. Wincing, I sat down on the toilet and let flow one of the hundreds of visits my tiny bladder and I would be making to the loo that day.

I was so sore as I hadn't been to yoga in over two weeks and I had done double duty with ashtanga yoga on Saturday and yoga on Sunday.

Punishment, man. Real punishment.

I have been thoroughly enjoying yoga. As the instructor says, it's one hour when the whole focus is to focus on relaxing and taking care of ourselves. With a depression like the one I have been investing in, this hour has become sacred, has become what I need to try to clear my head. As time passes I can see a real difference in my flexibility, although I have to say, I've seen no evidence of a leaner and trimmer Madonna-like body, unless you're talking a Raphaelite Madonna, and then I am only a few kilos of Emmenthal away from that.

Any more stressful projects like the one I am on and I'm going to look like a poncy Renaissance chick.

Yoga is not without its challenges. Besides the whole noxious gasses worry, I have had to learn how to keep a straight face when I am asked to go into the Sun Salutations, a part of which contains Downward Facing Dog (it's basically a position where you are an inverted V, which your ass to the sky, arms straight and your feet flat on the ground. Besides having a stupid name, it can strain some serious fucking calf muscles.)

When I started yoga it was with the knowledge that I needed to do something new. I walked away from my pugilistic past of hockey, tae kwon do, and boxing, and embraced a new world of Zen and shiny happy mantras holding hands. I figured that yoga, a sport that one does on one's own, is a sport that I need.

It helped that one of the yoga instructors, a very nice woman named Jocelyn, told me on the first day that yoga is strictly non-competitive. I was raised to be competitve. I used to be so competitive that I had to win at all costs, rather like my father, who is so competitive that board games fly should he lose at them. Whole countries have slid off the map at his loss of a basketball game. Chef Boyardee nearly created a new tin of ravioli, one laced with tranquilizers, when he faced my father in a bake-off. Yeah. Competitive. This has all largely passed on my behalf-I used to be a real fighter, but as time moves on I not only don't care who wins I am not particularly interested in the game, so I figured this was something for me. This is a singular act used to focus on taking care of the self.

I was right.

But I was also wrong.

I started yoga about four months ago, and a week or two after I started another woman joined. She's maybe mid to late 40's, with peroxide blond hair and very tight yoga clothing, and according to her a recent divorcee. She drives one of those pointless Mercedes 4x4s that we all know will never go off road in the duration of its entire vehicular history. Her name is Reena.

And she's starting to drive me nuts.

She and I both go to all the yoga classes on offer-Thursday night, Saturday morning (Ashtanga) and Sunday mornings. I can't always make the Ashtanga ones, and my rocket riding gerbil and Monaco saw me miss a few weeks of yoga, but in general I am a fixture. I love going to yoga. I hate being late. And since the class is in an old converted 17th century barn, I like to get there early with my mat and look out the window at the countryside.

Now Reena has started getting there even earlier and taking up so much space that she's the only one with access to the windows, despite there actually being room for three to look out the windows. It must have something to do with her feng shui needing to fuck up other people's karma or something, but she spreads out right across the window access, so the rest of us are facing exposed beams and whitewalls. Nice.

I sit and hold my fingers in the moudra position and follow Jocelyn's instructions to breathe in energy and life, and breathe out the stress and (annoyance) sadness.

And now Reena has taken to reading yoga books and challenging the instructors with her newfound knowledge.

'I've just read Yoga for People Who Want to Suck Up,'� she'll start. 'And it says that a complete and perfect mind-body harvest should be completed when the Hindu Moon hugs the Buddhist Moon as we cycle through the Third Chakra. What do you think about that?'�

The rest of us sit in silence as the instructor gets caught up talking about yoga with Reena, while the rest of us look at our toes and make mental notes to change the color of the polish. Red is the new black after all. It is summer.

As more time has passed, I've been able to do harder and harder yoga positions with one exception-I still have a very bad back and so have to tread carefully with it. If I do too many positions which involve turning my back into the spinal equivalent of a Tupperware bowl, then I am a crippled chick for the next few days. So while I can do the severe variations of anything involving arms, legs, various Warrior positions and whatnot, I am a pussy when it comes to back poses.

But Reena. Oh, Reena. She has to take every opportunity to do the most severe back positions and she looks over at me and smirks with a smug superior smile: I'm like a Slinky Toy. Her position taunts. I have no back problems at all. Your life sucks. I am way more bendy than you.

I smile back benevolently. I am one with the Zen. I am at peace with myself. I smile and my smile says: Yes, your back is more bendy. Congratulations. But when I go home tonight I'm going to get laid, which is more than I can say for you.

She blinks.

My smile politely reinforces my position. And it will be multi-orgasmic.

I face forward. I am one with the Zen.

On Saturday though, the last nerve, she got stepped on. We moved through the Sun Salutations with the room's heater turned on Turkey Baste (the point of Ashtanga is constant movement and pig-like sweat. I think Ashtanga is translated to 'Thermometer Popping Out of Ass Pain'�, however I might be wrong about that). Then the Ashtanga instructor turned to us to demonstrate the next sequence. She started off, then stopped.

'Oh, not Warrior 1!'� she exclaimed, giggling in embarrassment. 'What am I doing?'�

'That's what I thought!'� crowed Reena. 'I knew we were meant to do Inverted Triangle! What were you thinking!'�

The instructor laughs and turns to me. 'This is what I get. Reena took me out for drinks last night.'�

What is this? You went drinking with a student? You are fraternizing with a student? Does this mean you will go to a Washington prison and serve a sentence while demonstrating a criminal taste in bad haircuts, only to be released to a People magazine spread and a lifetime of embarrassment?

We continue on, and at the end we get our shoes and socks back on. Reena claps her hands.

'I've just signed up for a life course.' She says to us, acting like the Shaman of the County. 'I would be happy to provide some literature to all of you to join. It's excellent-two weeks of organic vegan macrobiotic food.'�

Organic vegan macrobiotic food? Two weeks with no alcohol? With no cheese? With no alcohol and no cheese? Is that possible? Isn't that called 'Prison'�, not a 'Life Course'�? She looks pitying at me, like I am the one who needs to be served a meal of silence, lentils and hazelnuts with a side of hot water with lemon. I hide my Herpes Hand and try to look un-stressed.

'And it's two weeks of complete silence and meditation to ensure a healthy holistic soul. Men and women are segregated to ensure inner peace.'� She continues.

Hah. Two weeks of silence? Count me out. I can't shut up for two hours, let alone two weeks.

'It's wonderful, I can't wait. It's only £10,000!'� she says, acting like it's Christmas.

We look at each other. £10,000? £10,000, which is about $20,000 USD. That much for two weeks? Babe, I can have my dream holiday and have it on Business Class flights for £10,000. If I were going to be spending £10,000, there better be sex, alcohol, sea and cheese, and not all in that order.

I sit and hold my fingers in the moudra position and follow Jocelyn's instructions to breathe in energy and life, and breathe out the stress and (hatred) sadness.


-H.

My secret for today: When I am home alone, when Angus is away and traveling, I sleep with two stuffed animals. One of them is a yellow teddy bear, and the other is my own stuffed black lab toy from Sporty. And when I fall asleep I have to tuck the two of them tightly around my neck cause, you know, that's where a vampire would go should one sneak into the bedroom. You never know, people. You never know.

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June 28, 2005

I'll Put 10 on Red, Please

Monaco.jpg


Monaco was stunning.

Pretty fucking hot, but stunning.

It was apparent right after we landed that Angus and I are not cut from the same cloth as the people that party in Monaco. I have never seen so many Ferraris and Lambroghinis in my life. I have never seen so much Prada, Armani, and Bulgari in one area outside of a tax free shop.

Monaco9.jpg


This is just the harbor. What you can't see is the Lady Moura, the third largest privately owned boat in the world, with its own helicopter pad. This baby is owned by the accountant to the King of Saudi Arabia, who incidentally owns the world's largest private boat and his son has the second largest. Now, maybe it's me, but if I were a Queen and my accountant had the third largest boat in the world, I'd be smelling an audit, but then I am not a Queen (unless you count that one episode in college, but I am so denying that whole escapade).

This is the Grand Casino, and apparently the oldest casino in the world.

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Angus and I went in and watched a while. I thought about playing a few rounds of roulette, but after I found out it cost €300 for just the privilege of sitting my little white ass on a roulette stool, I decided the slot machines were for us. We bet €10. We won €12, which we promptly lost. But we didn't care-we only lost €10, and that's about the cost of a lunch in most European countries, so we were ok about it.

The first day we were due to tour Old Town and see the tombs of the late Prince Albert and his wife, Princess Grace, but we were just too fucking tired. We begged off a tour and slept in. We had sex. We had a huge meal. We had more sex. We have pictures of that, too, but some things aren't meant for posting. We swam in the hotel's saltwater pool warmed to a temperature that made me fall madly in love with said pool. We drank too much Rose wine (because that's what one drinks while in Monaco, don't you know), and then attended a black tie dinner, with him looking stunning and me in that dress again.

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The next day the tour had arranged for a series of vintage cars to take us to the medieval village of Eze and to the seaside town of Villefranche.

Who could resist the chance to ride in a large American chopper, imported all this way and celebrated?


Monaco 2.jpg


In the end, we started off the tour with this car, a 1962 Excalibur.


Monaco 3.jpg


I chose it because it looked like a cartoon. I felt like Cruella DeVille. Tourists and tour buses took photos of us riding in it, and I felt like waving and saying: Why yes! We work in telecom!

Eze is a fantastic Medieval town snuggled high on the cliffs of the French Riviera. It is stunning, tiny, and full of nooks and crannies that just beg exploration.


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It didn't get much more perfectly French than that.


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And of course the views over the harbor were amazing. All I could think of was how luscious that water would feel over my skin, how tantalizing it is to swim out in the hot fresh sea.


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Of course, the boy turns me on, too. It helps.

We took this little number back to the hotel, a 1969 Buick Skylark that just screamed Starsky and Hutch. It was fantastic, but it didn't help that it was black leather interior that had been open to the sun all afternoon. My ass DNA is still all over that backseat I think.


Monaco6.jpg


Even though we were told that all our expenses-bar gambling expenses-would be covered, we didn't milk the company. We could have had helicopter tours, bathed in champagne, or hired yachts, but Angus and I just felt like relaxing and being together. Monaco was beautiful and amazing, but it was a whole world away from us. I'm a Gap and FCUK kind of girl, not a Chanel chick. Not even if I had the money to be otherwise.

I mean, how else could I go without knickers as often as I do if I had paid £5000 for a dress?

-H.

PS-My secret for the day:

When Kim and I went to Venice, he bought a gold ring to have blessed in a church there. He slid it on my finger and told me that spiritually, we were married. After we'd parted and when I was in Bali, I realized that I couldn't have this ring on my finger anymore. I took it off and, running to the ocean, I winged it into the sea as far as I could. This set a precedent for me-now when I leave someone, I throw their jewelry into the water. And now when I am daydreaming, I sometimes pretend that Kim walks in the room and tells me he's sorry, that he never really died, and that he wants me back. In my daydream, I always tell him that I love him and I'm glad he's alive, and then I walk out the door and never see him again.

I'm not sure what this daydream means.

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June 27, 2005

It's Secrets Week

I got an email this morning from my father. My father, the man whom I am closer to now than I likely ever have been. My father, with whom I have a relationship that is perhaps not the usual father-daughter relationship, but it works for us and I love him.

In his email he included the infamous saying: Time heals all wounds. Time heals all wounds. I had to think about that one, and I have been thinking about it all morning. He wasn't referring to our relationship, it was another matter, but there it was. Time heals all wounds.

I've decided I think the expression is complete bullshit.

Time doesn't do a fucking thing besides come running with rebar and concrete pilings to shore up the dam walls of resentment and awkwardness. When you are someone like me, with a Swiss cheese memory and the inability to let pain go, time only makes life worse. Time is the enemy. Time is the one you spend time circling in the tiger pen, hoping to catch it by the tail.

Time has passed and I still can't get over what happened at work. I am still very depressed about it, and I still have apathy the color of yogurt painted all over me. I can't focus, and I am now afraid to be myself, when previously I have been so proud that who I am at work is who I really am.

Time has passed and I continue to miss my Grandfather, Kim, and Egg and Bacon. I light candles for them in churches I pass by. I continue to long for Egg and Bacon to be tumbling by my side, holding on to my ankles and taking up space in my smile. And as far as my Grandpa and Kim go, I just wish I could talk to them both and say hello. And I wish I could forgive them for dying on me.

When it comes to some other areas of my life, time isn't healing the wounds. It's making the scars thicker and more permanent. It's making a callous form so that I can't even feel the pain anymore.

Time doesn't heal. It just covers up. And that cover up never goes away.

I've decided that it's secrets week. Secrets, which tear through the skin, get to be revealed this week. I am sick of my secrets and I am sick of the fact that for so long I had to choke on them, because I can't talk about things, because I wasn't allowed to talk about things. For this week I am removing IP tracking on my blog and allowing anonymous comments, so you can leave a comment with impunity and under a secret name if you want. Any comments that attack Angus or that have come from my family will be removed, but the rest can stay. This week I am going to let out one secret everyday, and if you want to join me, that'd be great, as this is something that I think will help me right now. Any kind of secret, be it dark or light. Mine will be both.

Today's secret, it turns out, is a bit dark.

January 2003 saw me try to kill myself in the darkness of an upstairs bathroom. It was a mistake, but one which made me wake up. It was the last time I will try to kill myself.

But it was not the first.

Welcome to the Fucked Up Cafe, can I take your order?

-H.

PS-I have been interviewed by Teens for Teens, which you can read here. Teens for Teens is a wonderful website for teenagers across the world to try to reach out and talk to each other. I wish this site had been around when I was a teenager. I wish I had been able to talk like they can.

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June 24, 2005

Picture Pages! Picture Pages! Now It's Time For Picture Pages! Time To Get Your Paper and Your PEN-cil!

My apathy with work is stunning right now. Since last Wednesday and then the return from Monaco (which I will be blogging about once I get my head back on), I simply haven't been motivated. 180 emails in the inbox? And? At the end of the day 18 voice mails? So what?

I have also been incredibly forgetful. I promise to send someone an email about something then completely forget about it, waking up at 2 am thinking Fuck me, I forgot to send that email! which I then race up to send first thing in the morning. I will start writing things down. I will start getting my head on straight again. I will start to try to care.

It hasn't been easy. Yesterday I took 7 hours out of my day to ride a train to Ipswich for a one hour meeting, and enjoyed a 45 minute stop on the tracks on the way back in a train with no AC and no opening windows. And it's about 90 degrees Farenheit here right now, so it was really like sitting inside a great big shiny bullet while enjoying rivers of sweat down my back and neck.

Life has me wondering. I wonder when Angus and I can go away next. I wonder if Angus will buy me that ring I like (please, Angus? Pretty please?) I wonder if we will get a house and I wonder when it will happen. I wonder if Best Friend and K will calm down and love each other's company as much as I think they can, and push aside the ragged demons of their pasts. I wonder what Angus and I will do this summer (besides not attend Live8 as we didn't get tickets. Curse you and your altruistic kindness Bob Geldof! Curse you! And since when did ebay become the moral majority instead of a business? Am I missing something?)

I just don't give a fuck right now. My head hurts and I just want to sleep all the time. The sun is out and I want to sit in it and not miss a second of the sunshine. I want to IM with friends and I want to read blogs and I want to let it all go.

In the meantime, I offer a visual piece of my life. You know. Cause the literary side isn't so hot just now.

My workspace.jpg


This is the view from my desk. Observe the many orchids (which Angus is sick of, so likely no more of those for a while). Ignore the overflowing in-tray.


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This is an antique rack that hangs on our kitchen wall. The assortment of things on it all have a meaning for us, something small or interesting that we have picked up. The top shelf has an antique light bulb that Angus nicked from his old school before parts of it were demolished. The pitcher next to it is an enamel, turn-of-the-century working family's pitcher that I bought because I love holding things that supplied someone else's lives (brace yourself Elizabeth and Jen! I'm in love with these!) There is a candle and then an antique pint jar for milk, the kind that deliverymen used to use, then a watering can.

The second shelf is our boring eating ware. Plain white. Vanilla. We're boring.

The third shelf has many treasures-a painted tile from Venice. Three ducks from a Scottish company called Dragon Pottery that I have fallen deeply in love with. An empty glass yogurt jar from France, 10 antique Elnglish copper pennies called tuppence, and then the glass jar from the 1920's that I found under the stairs in Angus' and my first house together, then a Swedish crystal bowl I bought when Angus and I were in Sweden to get my lovely girls last November.


My ducks.jpg


This is a close-up of the ducks. I fucking love those things, something about them speaks to that inner child in me, and since my inner child and I have never been close I just have to try to speak to my inner child any chance I get. Making up for lost time and all.

In my kitchen window sits another antique enamel pitcher which I keep filled with fresh flowers-this time sunflowers. And next to it is another Scottish Dragon Pottery special, this time a sheep. If you look out the back window you can see the bamboo poles which I am growing sweet peas up. I feel very proud of those sweet peas.


Pitcher and sheep.jpg


And on those nice days when I get to work from home wearing pajamas and drinking copious amounts of coffee, I am often graced with the presence of my assistant Maggie. She's rubbish at bringing me coffee but if a fly gets in the way, she's great at helping me re-organize my desk.


My Assistant Maggie.jpg


I am so thankful every damn day for my wonderful cats.

And finally, since I have likely bored you with my workplace depression and my penchance for pottery barnyard animals and working man antiques, I give you the action shot.

Ladies and gentlemen-The Hand Herpes.


The Hand Herpes.jpg


Go on. Tell me that rash turned you on. Makes you want to run right out for a hand job, doesn't it?

-H.

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June 22, 2005

I Have WHAT?

Because things aren't fucked up and stressful enough at/about work, I had to get a visit from the Health Fairy.

Yeah. That's right. The Health Fairy. And I'm going to rip her goddamn wings off the next time I see her.

Last Tuesday morning (the morning before Trade Journal Nightmare Day) I woke up with a very strange and painful purple rash taking up most of my right hand. Said purple rash was not unlike a port wine stain birthmark, only I don't have a port wine stain birthmark, so I just went about my daily business of trying to survive the corporate world.

On Thursday, the rash was still there, and still painful.

On Friday, blisters started forming a la chemical burn (which I assumed was what happened). And strangely Angus' right hand started getting covered in a thick purple rash.

By Sunday, the blisters were popping.

Tuesday morning the skin on my hand started coming off in sheets, and Angus' formed blisters.

It was time to see the doctor.

Tuesday afternoon I got an appointment with Dr. Henry, as my usual doctor is on holiday this week. I stroll into the office and read a two month old copy of Hello! magazine. When my name is called, I go into his office.

Dr. Henry is sitting on his chair, and I am surprised to see that Dr. Henry is Hispanic. There are not a lot of Hispanics in Whitney Houston, after all. And even more unsettling is the fact that Dr. Henry looks amazingly like the Hispanic character from The Simpsons, the one who is always dressed up in the Bee costume.

"Hola!" calls Dr. Henry cheerfully. I resist the urge to ask him to say "Ay Carumba!" I will not play into stereotypes. "What is the problem?" he asks.

I hold out my hand and sit in the chair next to him. "I have a bad rash." I say, feeling silly. He asks me many questions: Have you been gardening? Using any new chemicals? Feeling bitter and sexually harassed in the workplace? Eating oranges and then lying in the sun? Only one of those are true, and that one wouldn't give me a rash, just a nervous disorder, so he has a quick answer.

"It is the herpes." he says, looking at me.

I look up sharply. "What?" I say weakly.

"Herpes. It is the herpes."

I start to cry. I know that herpes is a common affliction and that the stigma is no longer necessary or warranted, but out of all the illnesses I can think of in my life, herpes is one of the ones I fear the most (likely due to a chick I worked with in a bookstore who had them. The horror stories she would tell! The sheer unmitigated nightmare she would talk about! So...um...yeah thanks, N. You've made a quivering little herpes-fearing mouse out of me).

"I don't understand!" I wail. "I'm in a long-term relationship! I can't have the herpes! I've always been so careful!"

He looks panicked. "No, no, no! Is no genitals!"

I pause in the weeping. "What?"

"Is no genitals! Is no like genital herpes! Is not from sex!"

I am starting to calm down now. "What do you mean?"

"Is a virus, like shingles." He whips open a book of people who are in various forms of putritifcation and rotting from any amalgamation of highly unpleasant disease categorized A-Z. He finds the Happy Herpes section and shows me, amongst pus-ty penises and virulent vaginas, what herpes blisters look like.

"Mine didn't look like that." I say with relief. I am relieved. It is not the herpes. It cannot be the herpes. "I don't have the blisters anymore, although Angus-that's my boyfriend-he does."

"Can your boyfriend come here now? Seeing his blisters will help my diagnosis." asks Dr. Henry. This will be popular. Angus just loves him a slice of Doctor visit.

I call Angus and he warily agrees to come up. A slice of doctor visit is one thing, but if it comes needle a la mode there will be problems. As we wait for Angus Dr. Henry and I chat. I decide I like Dr. Henry (although I now have to work to not call him Dr. Herpes). There is something good and wholesome about Dr. Henry, plus it's hard not to like someone who was named the same name as my childhood crush Henry Thomas (I'll always be right here for you too, baby. Always).

Angus comes in and shows his hand to Dr. Henry. He chooses the seat closest to the door and this amuses me-if he tried to do a runner I think I could take him. Rug burns would be involved, but considering we're in the surgery I imagine there is a waterfall of First Aid cream in the back.

Dr. Henry looks at the hand and looks at me. He nods. Dr. Henry and I briefly are in cahoots about my tragic illness. Angus looks at me.

"Dr. Henry thinks we have the herpes." I say grimly. Angus looks up in shock.

"Is the herpes." Dr. Henry agrees sagely.

"We have the Hand Herpes." I reiterate sadly. I wonder when it will go from Dr. Henry's Spanglish "the herpes" to "herpes", but maybe we need more time to get familiar with our affliction. Maybe buy it a glass of wine to loosen it up or something.

"Is like the shingles." explains Dr. Henry. "Is a virus. No from sexual contact, just contact."

Angus looks at his hand with horror. "What is the most common way of getting it?" He looks as though amputation might be his favorite option.

Dr. Henry considers. "Most common way is to come in contact with someone recovering from the chicken pox. Know someone with the chicken pox?"

I resist the urge to ask him about saying that "Ay Carumba!" quote again. I don't know anyone with chicken pox, and if I did, I'd bitchslap them. I tell him I don't know anyone. He sighs, shrugs, and prints off a prescription. "Is so unusual for two people to have the same rash in the same place!" he said, looking at us. "I have never seen this before! And you didn't start the rash at the same time! I wish I had my camera!"

Yes. That's right. We're medical marvels. Us and our identical Hand Herpes, we are making history. Look for us in a medical journal near you, only there will be a black box over our eyes and we will be repelling 9th graders during a boring study hall for the rest of our lives.

"You happy? Healthy? Eat good meat?" Dr. Henry asks us.

"I'm a vegetarian." I say.

Dr. Henry looks at me in horror, as though me and the Hand Herpes are sprung from the same virus. Then he looks at Angus. "You are the vegetarian too?"

Angus looks at him. "Never!" he swears, straightfaced.

"Is no good! You must eat the meat! The steak!" he says, looking as though the entire beef nation is mourning the fact that I've surrendered my A1 belt. He looks at Angus and hands the prescription to him. "You. You have early stages of the dermatological herpes. You can be helped, but her? She too late. Pills will not do any good now. Helen, you will have the rash for another week or so, but Angus? Angus we can help."

Great. So I instigate the doctor visit and I'm the hopeless herpes cause.

Angus looks at the paper. "I can drink red wine while taking this medication?"

"Absolutely." says Dr. Henry.

"And eat red meat?"

"All the meat you can get!" Dr. Henry crows, looking at me. I roll my eyes.

"My Hand Herpes and I thank you." I say, standing. "Is this contagious? Should we have a Hazmat suit?"

"No contagious. No problem." Dr. Henry says as he reaches for a jar of anti-bacterial hand gel and slathers it on. Bastard.

"If it is no gone in two weeks, you come back in and give me a hard time." Dr. Henry says kindly.

"I will!" I say. "And I will come bearing vegetables!"

Angus and I take his prescription and he goes and fills it. Later, surfing at home, he finds out that the prescription Dr. Henry has asked for the type of anti-viral medication that is also used for the genital herpes. This, while he was making small talk with the cute chicks at the pharmacy.

Better strike those babes off the Helen Replacement List, sweetheart.

We make Hand Herpes jokes the rest of the night, only if anyone asks, we have decided to say that we have shingles.

Yeah, that's it.

Shingles.

-H.

PS-I am back in the Lion's Den today in London, dealing with the same place I was one week ago. But some things may have changed. Some things may (hopefully) be different. I have taken a few steps of action about what was said to me/about me on Wednesday. I'll update tomorrow on what has happened and if it was successful or not, and where I am going from here.

I am still so scared you wouldn't believe it.

And I am still very, very down about it all.

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June 17, 2005

In Which I Sunbathe Topless (Hopefully)

And because I have a serious and desperate need to get away from it all and have some sun, sea, sex and sangria, we are off today.

That's right.

Time to collect on that Dream Job award as Angus and I fly off for a long weekend in Monaco.

I'm ready-strappy sundresses, floaty skirts, a new and gorgeous swimsuit (I have moved back into the safety zone of the one piece tank. That time has come again), huge sunglasses, big hat, and for this black tie event we have to attend on Saturday, I am wearing That Fucking Great Blue Dress. Yes. That one. We arrive in the afternoon in Nice and are taken in a special convoy to our 5 star hotel in Monte Carlo (Monaco), where we can chill by the pool before attending a dinner. On Sunday we are taken in vintage cars to some wine tasting event in the French countryside. Saturday will be spent bunking out of activities and just being together, and for both our sakes, I hope we unwind and groove into the romantic zone.

Helen is hopeful for much handholding and doting, really.

Helen is feeling needy and just a little bit blue.

It happens.

We are already walking around the house trying to feel posh.

"Darling, would you like some coffee?" I ask Angus as he gets out of our sit-down shower. I am dressed in a T-shirt and boxers and Mumin is crying for cheese in the kitchen. I know it's her in the kitchen-not only does she always want cheese, but I took Erin's advice and she's currently wearing three bells on her collar (and nope! No mice yet!)

Angus sighs dramatically as he drapes a towel around his waist. "Fine, but maybe we don't need the smoked salmon and caviar until lunch."

I feign shock as I wing an errant tampon wrapper into the trashcan. "But darling! I've already had Geoffrey take them out for our breakfast."

"Oh, fine." Angus says, acting put out. "We'll just have the oysters for lunch then. Have the helicopter brought round, can you?"

I head downstairs, passing Maggie the Wonder Cat as she tries to catch and eat a fly. "I'll just ask Geoffrey about the coffee then, shall I?"

"Indeed."

I walk downstairs imagining I am wearing Prada instead of Gap. It almost works.

We are not posh, but at least we know how to pretend to be.

See you Tuesday.

-H.

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June 16, 2005

Blow by Blow Recount Later Next Week

Professionally, a stunning victory and a horrible blow.

Personally, a shattering pain and a humbling high.

I'm going to spend today going to High Wycombe to watch my niece graduate, to get over my hangover, and to figure out what the hell to do.

-H.

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June 15, 2005

Happy Birthday to My Everyday Stranger

Two years ago today, I started this blog.

I remember it well. I had been debating starting it for a long time. I pondered. I wondered. I checked out Blogger. I sat at my desk that morning, that open plan desk on the 6th floor overlooking the internal guts of Company X's building and wondered how much granite a place could be made of. I signed up for an account and wondered what to call my blog. It didn't take long to think up the name Everyday Stranger. Then I wondered what to call myself, and that took even less time.

Then I didn't wonder anymore. I just wrote.

I didn't know what to do with my blog or what it was I wanted to achieve.

I still don't.

I do know that I was in therapy. I was depressed and unhappy with work, my marriage, my situation. I was so curious about what was in my head and heart that I wondered...if I had a little web page that I couldn't cast in the fire, would it all come out of me?

Much of it has. Not all of it, but much of it.

My blog has made me very happy. To put some statistics on it, it ranks in the top 90,000 most visited web sites in the world, which in the grand scheme of how many web sites there are in the world, is not a bad thing at all (I'm above Aberdeen News but below the BBC. Justice has been served).

I have had over 400,000 visitors since I started counting them. Over 9,000 comments. I used to get more daily comments a year ago than I do now-whether that's because I suck more this year than last year, I don't know.

Statistics aren't my bag-I don't know whether those numbers mean anything or not. Those are just numbers, and numbers don't change my life. What has changed my life are some of the people that I have met through my blog so far. I have met some incredible creatures that spread their hearts in my email box, and I love them for that. I have met wonderful, happy people and people like me-people that have weekends when only Aaron Spelling jokes will do. People that have lost their minds, their hearts, their jobs.

But the biggest thing that has impacted me is this: my blog continues to force me to pay attention, and I can't express how much I've learnt just by paying more attention.

So here's to my second anniversary of blogging.

I'll meet you this time next year, and I'll bring the gin.

-H.

PS- wish me luck. Am wearing my bestest knickers. I'm scared and exhilliarated at the same time.

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June 14, 2005

Just the Girls For the Day

Angus is in Stockholm, returning today, so it was just Melissa and I yesterday and this morning. She went out with her uncle to see the new Star Wars film last night, and then she returned and we spent time applying Lush face masks that smell like honey and trying to look pretty.

Yesterday I wanted to sit on the couch and watch those home improvement shows she likes so much and snigger with her at the horrible taste in throw cushions the designers inevitably have. I wanted to watch music videos with her and talk about those crazy kids nowadays. I wanted to plant all the flowers we bought as she suddenly loves gardening in the front garden with me, and actively takes part keeping things neat and tidy out there.

This must be what parents feel like. I know I am not a parent. I may never be one. But I think I understand now how sometimes the only thing you may want to do is sit on a couch next to a warm little person and talk.

Yesterday we walked to the corner shop and bought some bread for lunch. We rented some DVDs. We went to a few antique shops in the village and browsed. I bought Angus a small present (and I still want that ring, darling!) We went to the shops later where I browsed for a new business suit and I bought her a book. We talked and chatted and laughed and the thing is, I had a nice time and really enjoyed her company.

I think she enjoyed mine.

I have generally had a very easy time with Angus' 8 year-old Jeff instead of Melissa. Melissa, the penultimate Daddy's Girl. Melissa, who is old enough to be aware of the sensitivities and the emotions that accompany their parent's divorce and so I want to be careful around her and not confuse her. Melissa, the nearly 13 year-old that I never was, with the complete adoration of a father that I never had. Melissa, whose demands sometimes get on my nerves, whose complete siding with her father on everything sometimes irritates me, whose dislike for Americans is hard for me to accept quietly. It's not always easy for me, but I do know my rank in the grand scheme of things.

And the truth is, I am growing accustomed to her being around. She's a good kid, and becoming a cherished friend.

The past two weeks I have had many questions about the bandages on my face and leg (now both removed. I got bored of the stitches and so removed them in a fit of pique in our upstairs bathroom about a week ago).

My favorite reply, on someone asking about my face, was to reply: I cut myself shaving.

You should've seen the looks.

The other standby was: I got in a bar fight. You should've seen the other guy.

I saw Melissa looking at the scars but she never asked. Had she asked, she is the only one that would have had the truth. Life is too short to start losing your faith in the grown-ups, I'd rather not be the one to take that away from her.

So now I am spending the night in London and Angus is home with Melissa. I know they're going to a tack shop to spend money on horse things for her. I know they'll be sitting on the couch cuddled up together. I know their company will be constant. And instead of feeling confused about it, I am just glad for him. I know how much he misses his kids and I know this tiny quality time is a tonic for the soul.

She's about to be a teenager, so I know that all the rules we have now will go out the window as hormones roll the dice and cast a pall on things. It's not a reflection of her, only a reflection of those years that she has to go through, a sign that we all have to buckle up and stick it out. In some ways, I can relate to her more as a teen than as a child-I don't understand parent-child relationships, they're hard for me to grasp. I also know that I am a friend and 'step-parent' role only, and that's perfectly ok with me.

For instance, I hope she never gets her first period while she's visiting us. Not because I don't want to deal with it and am afraid of it, because I am not. I would hold her hand and lock the bathroom door and talk to her. I would show her how to fold the wings just so, and I would dole out cramp medicine and understanding smiles.

But I know that the first period is a time in a girl's life when she needs her mother, to understand and to help understand. So for her sake and her mother's sake, I hope she's home to have that experience with her mother. I hope she's home with her mother the first time she meets a boy she likes. I hope she's home with her mother the first time she has her heart broken. These are times when there's just something about Mom that is the first aid balm which heals.

For everything else, I hope I get to be a part of. The graduations, the engagement. The first home. The first time she rolls her eyes at the music I put on the stereo. The inside jokes, the holidays, her first scuba trip. When she falls out of love with Orlando Bloom and graduates to George Clooney territory. When she raids my bookshelf or cooks dinner for all of us.

I hope I get to be a part of it all, but in the meantime, I will enjoy the gardening with her. I will watch the home improvement shows she likes and discuss the cinematic merits of The Grudge versus The Ring. I loan her my robe and my socks and she borrows all of my Lush stuff. It's taken a lot of time, but I am beginning to relax around her and she is hopefully beginning to relax around me.

And when her uncle picked her up last night and I provided her with my phone numbers, asked if she wanted some money and please what time would she be home?, her uncle laughed.

You're just like a mother! He said kindly, smiling and whisking her out the door.

And that was the nicest thing he's ever said to me.

-H.

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June 13, 2005

An Unusual Sunday

Something a little different happened on Sunday.

On Sunday, my uncle, aunt, and one of my cousins came over to our house for a barbecue.

They brought with them my Japanese grandmother, who has flown over from the States and whom I haven't seen in nearly 10 years.

She's over here for my other cousin's graduation from an American high school on an English Air Force Base near London. Angus and I are both going to the graduation on Thursday, and besides my stepmother and my uncle's family, this is the first exposure he's had of my family. The house was clean, Angus made a smashing leg of lamb and roast potatoes (I had soy sausages, thank you) and we had key lime cheesecake for dessert.

And the thing is, my grandmother hasn't changed a bit in 10 years.

There she was, looking exactly the same. No new lines seemed to have appeared. She still had the same tiny hands, the same tiny waist, the same tiny feet.

Grandma Shoe.jpg


And her tiny Japanese shoes don't come close to fitting giant Helen feet.

Grandma Shoe on Helen.jpg


Her English is still heavily and deeply accented, and she still loses her eyes when she smiles and laughs.

Just like I do.

There is a proposal to have a family reunion on Cape Cod sometime. If they have one, I asked if I could please be invited. I'm not an important family member and I never have been. I am tainted by my parent's divorce, my divorces, and my disappearance to the other side of the pond. My grandmother loves me but it is clear that my two sweet cousins are her favorite granddaughters. If I think about it, I imagine I will get invited-I'm like M&Ms, I guess. You never think about buying them, but if someone else suggests them and hands you a bowl with them, you'll partake and enjoy them for a short while.

One of these days someone is going to be able to explain to me why I've spent my life as the dark horse in the family, the one who always tried so hard to be a good girl and be loved, only to find third degree burns on the inside of her heart. Someone will be able to explain why it is I'm so easily forgettable, why it is that in terms of bloodlines I've only ever belonged to one tiny family unit and why I no longer even belong to that one. When that day comes, there will be some reckoning to be had.

In the meantime, the afternoon was very nice. We all got along extremely well, Angus was charming and was accepted readily, and Melissa (who is over here this week) was even hugged goodbye by my entire clan. Angus, Melissa and Jeff are invited to the reunion as well, and for once, I actually hope it takes place.

My grandmother loved our little cricket village. She loved the houses, she loved the flowers, she loved them playing cricket. She must have taken about a million pictures, but in retrospect, I guess that's expected-after all, at a pub on Saturday night she even took a picture of the menu. It was called the Queen's Pub-she felt that royalty should be respected. I don't think anyone had the heart to tell her there are tens of thousands of pubs in the UK with royalty in the name that had never seen a blueblood darken its doors before.

I told her she was being a stereotypical Japanese tourist, sans the white umbrella.

She laughed.

She calls my grandfather on our phone and shouts down the phone at him. I talk to him, a sweet mild-mannered man who I haven't seen in 10 years either. When I hang up, Grandma tells me that he bought his first cell phone three years ago. He and his friend went to a shop and insisted that they both buy a Company X brand phone, "to show support for my granddaughter!" as my grandfather insisted.

It is one of the kindest things I have heard, and I am nearly undone by it.

We walk around the village and Grandma sees English cricket playing on the country's oldest cricket green.

And in one picture with two sets of disappearing slanted eyes, I am reminded that what I am is also a part of where I come from.

And I am thankful-and frankly proud-for the journey so far.


Grandma and Helen.jpg


-H.

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June 10, 2005

Yesterday, on 'Whistling Pines'...

That does it.

I've had enough.

I've had enough of trying to open the hundred and fifty+ a day work emails as fast as they come in. I've had enough of hurriedly typing my blog posts on trains and posting them surreptitiously. No more can I stand checking my phone at the end of the day and seeing I have 16 voice mails, all of which will generate hours more work. No more can I abide being micro-managed to the very fiber of my micro-thin tights.

Forget it.

I quit.

I guit....reality.

That's right. No more will I be sad over losing the house. I won't be upset over the turkey carving that is my skin cancer woes and I won't spend another moment going over IVF stats. I will not stress that I am not pretty enough, and I will never need to agonize over which book to read next in my study.

I am going to start living my life as a soap opera. I mean a real one, as opposed to the craggy soap opera it already is. It's time that I rushed headlong into my new world, my new soap opera world, and embraced the melodrama that life should be.

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

I stretch on my white satin sheets, startling Moppet, my white persian cat, who goes to sit on a nearby chair stretched with white damask and watches me daintily. I sit up in bed and catch sight of myself in the mirror opposite-my makeup and hair is as perfect as it was just before I went to bed. I smooth one tiny spot of blue eyeshadow carefully, in case the whole palette cracks, and then I float out of bed.

I swirl into the living room in my pink chiffon gown. My YSL kitten heels with the little feathers over the toes make sweet graceful sounds on the tiled floors of my 1920's Spanish villa, built in 1982. Sighing dramatically, I float down onto the pink chinz couch.

"Are you all right Madame?" comes an accented voice from the door.

"I need my morning ritual, Consuela." I tell my maid. Not one to give in to service industry stereotypes, Consuela is from Norway. Her real name is also Marit but she indulges me and lets me call her Consuela.

"Now Madame," Consuela said, walking forward and whisking a blond braid behind her ear. "You take on too much stress. Organizing this charity tug-of-war is too much for you." She hands me three pills and a champagne cocktail. I look at one of the pills and see that one of the letters has been crossed off, but I can just about make out the word "Xanax".

"Consuela, this is folic acid, right? Remember-Tom Cruise said no one would need to take medication if they had scientology and vitamins. Tom Cruise wouldn't lie to us. He wouldn't be a posing chutney ferret who preys on women's sensitivities or anything. He would only ever speak the truth."

"Yes Madame. Uh...Xanax is uh...the manufacturer! Yes! The manufacturer of a new vitamin, one designed to prevent sagging breasts!"

"Oh....well I'll have four of them then!" I say brightly, and wash them all down with my champagne. I hand her the glass. "I can't remember the last time I was up this early," I say, consulting my watch. It is 2 pm, and I am so tired.

There is a knock at the door.

Consuela goes to answer it. I realize the new maid uniform I bought her from Chanel makes her ass look big. This pleases me, I shall buy more of them for her.

Consuela opens the door and in walks a stunningly handsome and rugged man. He looks handsome now, but time will not be as kind to him and in twenty years the male pattern baldness he has will make his ears look like dinner plates. He glowers at me.

"Chadwick! I say, gasping.

A sudden throng of eerie organ music echoes through the house.

We look around to see who might be playing organ music in my house.

"When did you come back to Whistling Pines?" I gasp, my hand at my throat. Consuela closes the door and walks to her maids quarters. Chadwick starts to watch her but when he sees the size of her ass his eyes revert back to me. Am definitely buying more of those maids' uniforms.

"I came back for Lila. I came back to get her and take her away to my cabin in the mountains."

"You mean the cabin where the militants held her hostage in their protest over GM corn? The one where she had a nervous breakdown before having a raunchy affair with Dingo, the GM corn crop protest leader in a Stockholm Syndrome Patty Hearst moment? The one where Dingo was gunned down and died in Lila's arms, with her swearing to kill 'every motherfucker within a five mile radius', as she said, which then prompted her two years in an institution where she acted like she was an eggplant?"

"Yes, that cabin. The bad memories of that place will have passed for her. She'll be fine there. After all, I've hung new curtains." he growls.

I run my hand on a crystal decanter nearby. "Lila is gone." I say, not looking at him.

"What? What are you talking about, Demeter?" The way he says my name is so vulgar, so common, so incredibly hot. "Where is she?"

I smile. "My evil twin sister can no longer torment the fine people of Whistling Pines. She's gone."

He looks at me. "Where is she? Did you eat her? I see you have something of a tiny pot belly growing there."

I pull my robe closed and tighten the sash forcefully. That asshole. "I couldn't possibly have eaten Lila. I'm a vegetarian. Gwenyth Paltrow advises it. No, it's worse. She's gone...hare krishna!"

"What?" he says incredulously. Organ music echoes again through the house.

"OK, I lied." I reply. He looks at me in anger. "Lila is...she's...well it's just too painful for me." I look away, tears glistening in big fat drops over my perfectly made-up eyes.

I turn back to him and know my mascara is running down my face expertly. "She's become...a soccer mom!"

Chadwick falls to his knees. "No! No! It's not true!"

"In the 15 years that have passed since you left her and was presumed dead after your car was swept off that mountain road and attacked by a crazed pack of freak wild elephants before blowing up, Lila changed! Once we heard your head had been found in an elevator shaft, she had to move on! She married, has two kids, drives a minivan!"

He sobs.

"She wears clothes from Ann Taylor Loft and loves her purple cashmere twinsets!"

He wails.

"And her husband is...he's...he's an orthodontist!"

Chadwick becomes unglued. He stands and grabs me.

"I need you Demeter! I need you like I never needed a woman before!"

"But you didn't always need a woman before, Chadwick! You were experimenting with prime time homosexuality long before Misha Barton!" I reply, scanning his eyes.

"That was different!" he growls. "I need to throw you on the bed and have a long and complicated relationship with you, one with a white wedding in which 40 million viewers will tune in to before we divorce after you have an affair with the cabana boy."

"The cabana boy is so 80's, Chadwick. No one does the cabana boy anymore, it's as passe as Ben Affleck. I'll be leaving you for Mary, a former criminal turned biker chick, who it turns out is actually a man in drag hiding under the witness protection program!" I whisper, running my fingers over his lips.

His face lights up. "I like that." he says, and reaches in to kiss me.

"But wait!" I cry. You're my father's sister's brother's son's nephew! You're also my cousin and half-brother, twice removed! You're also my gardener-"

"But all your roses out front are dead."

"You've been away for 15 years, what do you expect! We can't do this! Think of the church! Think of what the neighbors will say! Think of the genetic mutations this pairing can render!"

"I'm impotent." He whispers. "I use a pump. You'll be just fine."

He sweeps me up the staircase and into the bedroom as the camera focus goes soft and starry and crashing and swelling classical music plays.

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

With a sigh, I open my email. I turn on my phone and start listening to messages, while dialing in to conference calls at the same time. I have just enough time to juggle two calls before catching a train to London and working late there.

-H.

PS-my blog turns two next week. Scary. Amazing. And you know what? Rewarding.

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June 09, 2005

Slow Motion Waves

There are days that are triggered by the drafty air, the lack of light. A race into London only serves to exhaust, the trains whirring by in uncomfortable silence as I try to keep my skirt off the knee of the man next to me, as the man across from me tries to keep from fidgeting, to keep from stepping his scuffed work shoes on my naked sandaled toes. The sunshine sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't.

Tuesday it didn't.

Clad in simple clothes and with my hair laying across my cheek, over the bandage on the right side of my face, I make my way into the city. The hair may (sometimes) cover the one bandage, but the other injury slides down my leg, hidden by a thick white bandage. To further the damage, my right hand had a sort of surgery on it, which was somewhere between many shots and blinding pain. The result is that the hand looks bruised and is curled into a twisted crow-like claw, unable to open the fingers up and expose the fine lines of the palm to the light.

I am a bit bruised inside, too, but those injuries are my own to bear.

There are days when I stand in the midst of the people at Waterloo and wonder what is happening. I turn and face the sea of faces and find that they are moving in slow motion, a pause in their rush, quicksand in their run. I watch as the silver flash of a jacket zipper catches every stream of sunlight on the teeth. I see a woman push a tendril of hair out of her eyes, and it takes her minutes to reach forward, curl the fingers up, take the hair with the fingertips and push it callously to the back of her head, a lone wave rippling up in a sea of bottle blond. A woman is on a call on her mobile, and I watch as her crimson lips move and thrust and take a few minutes to slide down her teeth to form a word.

It's all in slow motion. People running, people checking their watches, a man reaching for his young son's hand. If I hold my breath I can hear the sound of a pound coin set on the counter in commerce for a thirsty water-craving businessman several stalls away. The sunlight streams through the window and clocks the dust particles in the air in front of me, erasing any sign of the train display I am trying to watch.

All I can do is stand there.

A pigeon hobbles next to me, lapping up a large piece of bread next to me. It tilts its head to regard me and finds I am moving as slowly as everyone else around me. This bubble, this celluloid goo, it just wraps us up and locks us in. I see the pigeon has only one toe on one of his feet, and a gust of wind generated from the undercarriage of an arriving train blows him off balance, his toe shortage poor compensation for the unforeseeable.

I look at my curled clawed hand and know the feeling.

Sometimes, I too am caught unaware by the gusts. There are days when I just don't have enough, when I have given all I can to him and them and him. I know that on those days when I think I have given it all I should open the lid on the barrel inside of me, look in, and reach in and give some more. I do this, but the splinters from the bottom of the barrel have buried themselves in my fingers. Infection is spreading.

Another pigeon flutters down and cheekily takes a nip of the bread. I see it has all of its toes but one of them is enormous, swollen and black. The pigeon limps and regards me, and I want to say: You too, eh? The infection is in you too?

Above me the train display shows a display for the Garden of Glass at Kew Gardens, and a ball of yellow light is emblazoned on the screen, backlighting the entire train station and targeting people with a dose of the artificial light. I watch the light bounce off the young punk with the aviator glasses. The man with a briefcase that has seen better days. The young woman in the black dress and black pumps that is trying too hard but she won't know it for another few years. I watch the light touch them but they don't pause in their slow motion ballet to crane their heads up to see this, and if they did, by the time they got their eyes to shift and follow the light would be gone.

I leave my pigeon friends to it and walk to the train platform, and I must be in slow motion too because I am not aware of getting there, I only know that I sit here and wonder about the passing stations, about my right hand, about the sunshine and about my cats. I wonder about my job and why the pace of it is nearly crippling now, about my thoughts, about the whiteness of the clouds. I wonder why it is that the one-legged pigeons go to stay at Waterloo, and what that means for the rest of us.

That's all this is, in the end. It's a slow motion, off-balance infection. It's bandages and puckered skin. It's sandals that you love and a phone full of unheard messages, it's the exhaustion of 12 hour days and too many emails. It's the balance between the happy and the sad, and the indecipherable moments in between. It's carrying home groceries to make a meal from someone that you are thinking about and hoping to proceed. It's watching the passing stations on the train

All that this is-getting through the days, trying to push down the who you were with who you could become if you could just figure out what the fuck everyone is saying.

I am so tired that I can even sleep in the sun now, and I hate sleeping in the light.

-H.

PS-We lost the dream house.

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June 08, 2005

The Murderer

Angus calls her The Murderer now, and the name has stuck.

Mumin, my simple, daft cat, has turned out to have a bloodthirst that I never knew was possible in a black cat with the paucity of intelligence that she has. All this time I have been duped. While Maggie was plotting to take over Luxembourg, Mumin had more concrete visions of working on a lower level, of abandoning lofty goals.

Mumin has taken to killing the neighborhood mice.

Vegetarian Helen is distraught. How can something I love so much be so evil? I know it's their nature, but still-can't I train the cats to sit with me and sing Kumbaya as we cuddle and nurture the neighborhood vermin?

Angus insisted from the get-go that the cats be trained to go inside and outside. Seeing as these are the first cats I have ever owned in my life that are allowed outside, I was petrified. How does one train a cat to come back? What do I do if they just take off running? What happens if something horrible happens to them?

Since they were identi-chipped to come to England, I bought them name tags with their names and Angus' phone number on them, as well as the screaming inscription 'I am identi-chipped' (that way animal research facilities are less likely to abduct them, knowing that they can be tracked). I updated all their shots and bought flea and worm preventative. Over-cautious doesn't begin to describe me-these are my babies, my perfect balls of black and white fluff.

So we started training them, 'walking them' around the house. It felt a bit stupid walking around behind a black and white housecat, but over time they grew comfortable. Now on warm days I simply open the doors and they come in and out, eating grass and checking on me. They are happy, and in return I am happy for them.

But something new has happened.

Tuesday evening, coming off a conference call, I bounce downstairs in my pajamas. Maggie is lounging in the hallway in the sun (ignoring the open doors) and Mumin is in the kitchen. I walk into the kitchen and see that she has one of her toy mice on the floor, and is pawing it. I smile, and then freeze as the toy mouse tries to do a runner out the door.

It was no toy.

It was a real mouse.

I scream and grab Mumin. I know I should praise her-this is, after all, a gift. She is looking at me with an expression that says: Mommy! Mommy! I just found out I like cheese and killing for fun! I really, really do! Just melt some of that Emmenthal over my little rodent buddy here and it will be the best day ever!

I springboard Mumin out of the kitchen and manage to pin the terrified and quaking little mouse in a corner (and it is a baby mouse at that). It looks unharmed, so I scoop it up and run outside, depositing it in my front garden. I know that I should kill it, but I just don't work that way. I just can't do it.

Shaking, I email Angus. He tells me that we knew this day was coming, only we thought it would be the clever Maggie who would be the hunter. Maggie, the elegant cat that was currently busy catching and eating flies in the hallway. Maggie, who was seemingly as vegetarian as I am, albeit with a craving for picante insect.

I call Angus to discuss this and walk back downstairs on the phone, only to find that Mumin has done it again-there is another mouse in the kitchen, only this time, it's dead.

Cue the hysterics.

I start babbling and screaming into the phone in tones only dogs can hear. Mumin looks puzzled, as though I am not catching what she's throwing at me. Dude, her expression says. Dial down the drama. This one is dead, ok? You'll like that better. You threw out my last Mother's Day gift, after all.

Once again Mumin gets springboarded out of the kitchen as I burst into tears and scream a lot. Putting the phone down, I grab some paper towels and pick up the dead baby mouse by the tail. As I am carrying it outside, its leg twitches and hits my finger and in my germ phobic horror I drop the mouse, letting it fall all the way to the concrete.

If it wasn't dead before it certainly was now.

This makes me cry harder. I too have joined the ranks of mouse murdering.

I make the girls come inside and shut the doors.

When Angus gets home it is clear that Mumin has an elsewhere she'd rather be. She's pawing at the doors and mewing pathetically.

'How's my little Murderer? Hmm? Wanting to practice your terrorism?' Angus purrs to Mumin, petting her. 'Thinking of killing again?'

She meows in response.

I wring my hands. 'Do you think that mouse went to mouse heaven?' I ask. 'You know. Since its life ended the way it did?'

Angus shrugs. 'I imagine being killed is a good way to earn that punch card, Helen.'

It must be my parenting. If I were a good parent my cats would be building mouse sanctuaries and helping me tie dye hippy clothing, not trying on a Tom & Jerry act.

I know I have to let Mumin out again, only this time I'll be standing guard at the doors. I know it's a present darling, but I'm more of a jewelry fan than roadkill, but thank you. Mommy loves you anyway.

Little Murderer.

-H.

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June 07, 2005

I Can't Bear to Watch

Remember how we had won the house in a tie with another couple, and whichever couple sold their house first and went to contract would be the winner?

The roller coaster has begun.

Yesterday morning Angus got a call from the estate agent to say that the house we had bid on and won in a tie with another couple was gone. A third party had swooped in, offering the same price we did and immediate cash, and thus the home owner took their offer.

I was severely depressed. Angus tried to be cool. "The location wasn't great." he assured me. "The garden would take a lot of maintenance. We didn't like the rendering."

"Are you trying to talk yourself out of it?" I asked.

"Of course." he replied. "I'm depressed about losing it, too."

At the same time, Angus' estate agent for his home in Brighton rang to say that someone loved the house on Saturday and, although there are a few reservations, the very interested party is coming back for a second viewing this Sunday. And this man would be paying cash-there's no chain contingent on his buying the house in Brighton should he choose to do so.

Slam door. Open window.

Then another estate agent rang to say that he'd seen Angus' property in Brighton, and he knew someone that would fall for it hook, line and sinker. The person is being shown the property today, however it's a chain buyer, meaning that if she loves it, she has to sell her house first.

More fresh air needed. Two windows open, albeit one is only cracked open a bit, tantalizing us with the scent of wisteria.

Then the estate agent for the house we want so much rang back. The third party buyer, it was revealed, had lied. They didn't have cash but were also part of a chain and needed to sell their house.

Our dream house was back to being a race between us and that other couple.

Then the agent dropped us down the roller coaster hill-the other couple had had an offer on their house that day.

If we get an offer on Brighton within the next week, we are still in the game. Otherwise, it's back to looking at homes online, although I don't think I can keep looking until we've sold Brighton.

This roller coaster is frightening.

And exhausting.

-H.

PS-if anyone is good at stats, please email me. I have some statistics that I can't figure out how to read!

UPDATE: OK, I'm trying to compare IVF clinics. To the very sweet folks that emailed me and offered help, my web server is bouncing my mails back so I've uploaded the stats below. The stats of the two contenders are attached in the extended entry. I am only looking at the under 35 column, and only care about the following columns:

cycles started
embryo transfers
egg collections
singleton live births
twin live births

But I can't understand all the stats! The numbers all seem to be different as the pool of women used in the clinic are different. I know one has a 77% success rate, but is that only because they have more women at it?

If you can help, I'd be grateful. The bottom line is, I'm trying to find out which clinic has the best success rate for a woman under 35. The stress is whipping me. The files are in the extended entry, if you could please right-click and save as.

more...

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June 03, 2005

Children of the Corn

This morning Angus rode the train into London with me, and we took a later train than usual. Whistling and happy in the sunshine, we park the car to hop on our train, when Angus realizes that he is wearing his business suit trousers and his tuxedo jacket.

Somehow, neither of us caught that as we left the house.

Strange.

He raced home and changed, managing to get back to the train station as we catch our train just in time (and can I just say....damn my boy looks good in a suit). Settling back, we enjoyed the abnormally commuter-quiet train. This week most of the schools have a week off, so the workplaces are empty as parents work from home or have taken holiday time. At Dream Job there are miles of open hot desks. The trains are empty of people in suits. The tubes are deserted of businessmen.

Instead, the trains and tubes are filled with frazzled looking mothers and over-excited children taking a trip into the Big Smoke.

As a woman, I love children.

As a commuter, children are a sign that Satan is alive and well.

A few rows back from us two quiet and interested young girls read a book on the history of the Tower of London. They look amazed, awed, and excited about heading into London. They are also very quiet.

They become my favorite children.

At the next stop two mothers get on the train with two boys about aged 8, two pre-teen girls, and a little girl of around 5. The little girl sits quietly on her Mum's lap, and she is quiet and serene (although I wanted to take a brush out of my bag and brush her hair. Rats' nest hair is so 90's).

The two pre-teens sat next to us playing with their mobile phones. This is not new-all kids here seem to have mobile phones. Angus' daughter has one as well. To be fair, in this day and age it comes in handy-if your kids need to be picked up somewhere, gone are the days I suffered in waiting in the cold if the event ended early and I waited for my parental unit to come get me. Now the message is easier-Mom, this party blew, can you please come and get me?

The two boys behind us, it turns out, are maniacs. Swinging from the luggage racks, jumping up and down on the seats, and shouting. Their mothers would lean over from time to time and insult the boys, calling them useless, a waste, and that they were "On the path to getting a smack, they didn't care who was watching!" Angus and I look at each other. Calling your kid "useless" as a form of control must surely go down in Dr. Spock's parenting books as a rather ineffective method of positive reinforcement. It was no wonder the children were monsters-if I was always called useless, I'd be uncontrollable, too.

The two young boys then got into a punch-up, screaming homophobic epithets at each other (a little bit young for intolerance, isn't it boys?) and punching each others' noses. Mother of the Year #1 wearily looked over at him.

"Shane! You're going to be grounded for another week!" she shouted, adjusting her black bra strap slipping down her arm.

"I don't care!" he shouted, grinding his elbow into the other kids head. "Fuck you!"

I look over at the pre-teen girls and see that they are removing the fluorescent green gum from their mouths and smearing it into the trays on the back of the seats and then folding up the trays and smashing the glue-like gum between the tray and the seat.

I can no longer keep my mouth shut.

"That is seriously un-cool." I say, looking at them. After all, I commute. I ride these trains. I have no idea how many times an empty seat couldn't be used on crowded standing room only trains as gum pockmarked the seat.

The pre-teens stare at me then shrug me off, but I can tell they're embarrassed.

One of the young boys then starts throwing up, and intersperses it with "I hate you!" behind us. I have no idea whom the "I hate you's" are being addressed at, but if they're at me, I don't really care. I'm not too fond of him, either.

The pre-teens then busy themselves with taking new freshly-chewed gum out of their mouths and smearing it onto the seats. Obviously the train trays weren't interesting (or destructive) enough.

We pull into the station and Angus and I rush off, eager to be away from the Children of the Corn.

-H.


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June 02, 2005

Vive La France! Vive La France!

I have been to France many times now, and everytime I go there I enjoy it, whether it's with Angus, work, or with a chipper redhead. Many things are said about the French, but if you're willing to give the language a try and enjoy the local cuisine then chances are you're going to get along fine and have a great time. Where else can you enjoy a jug of wine poured out of what looks like a gas tank, which tastes fantastic with a side of gooey cheese? What other country lets you drive around absolutely spotless motorways with art deco lighting and the occasional very bizarre sculpture marking the exits to the side roads?

And so it was that Angus and I joined a host of other English and drove our car to Portsmouth, to take a 5 hour ferry to Le Havre (I was prepared with Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons", which might explain why I had a thick Southern accent from time to time on the trip). These trips are known as Booze Cruises, as the business case for buying liqour and food in France is incredible-we all come back with the trunks of our cars leaning heavily towards the ground, so cheap is alcohol and food.

Boat to France.jpg


The day was unbelievably hot and sunny. After parking the car in the depths of the ship, we made our way outside to sit in the sun. A short while later and we glide slowly away from the dock, and the sea air is so refreshing and cool that I don a light sweater.

Helen on the Boat.jpg


Angus, meanwhile, is tough.

Tough Guy.jpg


It doesn't take very long before the trip gets bad. A trio of Englishmen in their Manchester United shirts stand next to me, looking over the railing. The talking I don't mind, but then they bend over, facing the sea, and their asses are mere inches from my head. I was on guard in case the noxious gasses escaped from sphincter cages, 'cause if that happened some men were going over board.

No gasses escaped, but the men did spend their time consoling one of their party and telling him how to "make his bird understand that he was the man and the one in charge".

I still regret not throwing them overboard.

I decide to go to the girls' room and so make my way inside the ship. Once my eyes get adjusted to the darkness, I am stunned by how incredibly loud it was. Blinking to end the pupil dilation, I am stunned by the sheer mass of teenagers running amok inside. I shake my head in wonder and then realize that we are on a ship full of French teenagers returning from a holiday in England.

The noise...the screaming...the laughter...Incredible.

The teenagers figure out that the doors actually open outward and in no time swarms of pubescent French kids are crawling and laughing all over every part of the ship, screaming and shouting and rudely pushing you in the hallway. The temptation to turn my feet out and walk like Charlie Chaplin is overwhelming, the pull to hear that satisfactory splash of a teenager going overboard is like an ache.

I run into another group of screaming teens, and this time, they're speaking English.

We're on board with two tour groups of teenagers. I find, amazingly, that I am fair and unbiased. I am not prejudiced.

I actually hate both groups equally.

I have become old and cranky overnight.

We get to Le Havre late in the evening and make our way to a faceless business hotel. We crash, but not before wrapping our limbs up in each other and having a quick shag. After all...we're on holiday.

The next morning after a quick round of bedroom jockey we get moving and head into the Cherbourg peninsula. We stop at two grocery stores and buy an overwhelming load of wine and stinky French cheese (oooh...the Camembert! The Pont L'Evec! Heaven!) which we load into a cooler in the back of the car. We buy some Comte cheese and a loaf of French bread, and as we make our way through the day we stop and spread a blanket in a field and picnic on bread and cheese, revelling in the sun.

We also have al fresco loving.

When in France...

We make our way to the hotel at Barneville-Carteret, stopping along the way to see some of the Beaches. Once we get there, we go up three tiny flights of stairs to our room, which faces the sea. Ironically, our room is also the one room with access to the fire escape, and so hanging outside our bedroom door is a key enclosed in glass to break in an emergency-this key is our room key. Our room can be opened by any Tom, Dick and Francois in the hallway. This, we find funny. We also find our 1960's style room funny, because nothing says "High Class Establishment" like walls covered in pink carpeting.

The view outside the room is lovely, made lovelier when the tide comes in. When the tide is low the estuary is empty, but as the night grew on the sea flooded in and we kept the doors to the room open, inhaling the salty air. Breathing it in, we did what any normal couple would do-we opened a bottle of wine.

And had sex again.

Helen By the Sea.jpg


We had a nice dinner and then head back to our room where we open another bottle of wine and then sleep peacefully after our Fourth Round of Action for the day.

In the middle of the night, I am awoken by sleepy and loving hands massaging my back. It is excruciatingly lovely and I ooze and squeeze my way between his fingers as he tries to wake me up for some loving. I sigh and giggle and am melting into his embrace and-

OH MY GOD FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST WHAT IS THAT SMELL?

Like a bolt I am out of the bed. The stench in the room is something like pure unfettered sewage. We look at each other and realize the culprit is the tide going out, and leaving in its wake a sea of dead and decaying seaweed in the estuary. We run and close the sliding glass doors to the balcony.

We are able to recover our lust, and then fall back asleep in sleepy satisfaction.

The next morning it's raining and chilly-clearly al fresco is off the menu for the day. We giggle and get ready, and find when we get to the car the smell of the cheese is pervading the ice box and our car is smelling like something has crawled in there and died, somewhere in the vicinity of the trunk.

We head off to the Beaches again as we may our way back to the area of Le Havre. We stop at Arromanches and see the massive man-made pier that was built in England and towed to France to allow Allied Troops the ability to get replenishments and supplies. We buy crepes and walk hand-in-hand in the rain. The final hotel spot for the evening is in the tiny town of Honfleur, which we manage to get to after playing Petrol Chicken (many places in France are closed on Sundays, and gas stations generally only take French credit cards. Luckily we found an open one, or this story would'veturned out a lot differently).

As we drive I have my feet on the dashboard and for some reason am singing the C&H Purecan Sugar commercial. You know. As one does (When you cook, when you bake, for goodness sake use C&H!)

We had passed through Honfleur on the way to our previous hotel and found it a stunningly charming French village, marked by a 105 year-old carousel that had clearly lovingly maintained and running in the center of the village. We check into our hotel and find that it's a fantastic old inn that had been renovated, to include a massive jacuzzi bathtub with LEDs lining the bottom of it.

That just had to be investigated by the two of us and a bottle of wine.

Helen in the Bath2.jpg


After our toes and fingers resembled raisins, we headed down for dinner. All around us were English speakers, including an American dad who was obviously divorced with his teenage daughters visiting for a few weeks. The teens looked bored and talked about their private school, and I couldn't imagine being so lucky as a teen to not only be in private school but to visit Dad in boring old France.

The meal was fantastic, and the waiter clearly liked us. We followed all his recommendations and had a fantastic time, laughing and relaxing in the atrium of a lovely restaurant, listening to the rain fall. After the meal, the waiter came up with a large crystal decanter with a liquid a cool clear amber in the bottom. He winks at us.

"It's a special treat. It's Calvados." he said, smiling. Calvados is a special liquer in that area of France, made from apples. He uncorks the decanter. "This is very special Calvados. Very rare. 12 years old, and on the house." He pours us two snifters of it and we taste it. It's like liquid fire going down that explodes into heat blossoms as it reaches the stomach.

We head back to our bed and fall asleep entangled in each other. The next morning we get moving and head back to Le Havre, boarding the ferry (again filled with a gaggle of French teenagers). I finish my book. Angus sleeps. Once we get to England we are let out of the massive ship and drive home, where Angus hops out and drives to Heathrow to catch a plane to Finland.

The wine is put away, the fridge smells like a gym sock, but the memories of the long weekend are still deep inside.

-H.

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June 01, 2005

A Break in Our Regularly Scheduled French Trip Programming

As I had the "suspicious" mole on my face removed, with a neat strip covering the stitches.

A Pirate Life For Me.jpg

The pleasures of the Skin Cancer tango.

And just for measure, I had some non-cancerous lump on my leg called a Hysterical Esis (or it was something like that, my medical jargon was not covered in Hooked on Phonics) which resulted in more carving on my leg and even more stitches.

Just For Measure.jpg

Observe the dancing frog socks.

We will return to our regularly scheduled planning tomorrow.

-H.

PS-As Angus is in Finland (and thank God he's back home tonight, although my stuffed G-Dog may not be too pleased to be relegated from the bed to the dresser) I saw the latest Star Wars movie last night with Lance, our old roommate. I have to admit...I actually liked it. It was much better than the previous two, but does anyone else find Anakin's switch to the Dark Side to be way too easy? It was like:

Emporer: Anakin, join me on the Dark Side.
Anakin: Mmm....OK. I had nothing better to do this afternoon anyway.

This said from the woman with poor willpower, really. On some days I'd switch to the Dark Side just for a bar of chocolate and a five minute round with my mini-massager.

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