January 30, 2006

UPDATED ***BREAKING NEWS*** (The update? New pics to help me make bloody decision)

We interrupt this generally one-post-a-day site to bring you the following-

My project has been nominated for the highest award in Dream Job. This is a very cool thing and I hope we win, but because of this I have to attend a black tie dinner event Wednesday night at the Natural History Museum in London with the landed gentry and a chap that was knighted by the Queen not so long ago. For this, I had to buy a dress (the last two black tie events I went to I wore my blue hemp dress. I still love that dress to bits, only I really felt it was time for a new black tie dress to enter the competition).

I am not a posh girl, I'm not good at black tie. And since I'm a bit anti-establishment, I didn't buy black for the black tie (instead I bought two things, as I couldn't make my mind up in the shop and they were both on sale).

I have bought two items after much fraught debating and deciding. The dress I liked the mostest was unavailable in my size, and unfortunately the dress in my size had a snag in the delicate fabric. Since this event is two days away (meaning I have a meeting in London in the morning, then the Weakest Link audition where I will change into the black tie event after the audition, then this do) I unfortunately have no time to go hunting for the dress I liked the mostest (and that's the last time I will opt for poor grammar. From now on, it's totally unintentional).

So I need your help, and as such I will leave this post up tomorrow as well to see if I can find an answer.

I have option A and option B, and I need to know which one to wear. Please pretend that I am wearing, for example, jewelry, high heels, make-up other than lip gloss, that my hair is done up nicely and my arms covered by a nice scarf. Oh, and that I'm wearing a bra and scary pants, since holding things in is a must. Pretend I am wearing those.

Please let me know which one is better, option A (a jade-colored Grecian low-backed number. It is a very bright jade color, which doesn't show on the pictures as it needed the flash to show up, and I am so winter white that should I post it on the web an ambulance would turn up to cart me off for blood transfusions) or option B (a black ruched chiffon sparkly strapped top and an iridescent pale green skirt).

I've got 24 hours to narrow it down. I could use the help, Angus and I both have a favorite. Which would you wear if you were going to a massive black tie awards dinner with a knighted chap in one of London's finest museums (and please don't answer "I wouldn't wear those, I'd wear Prada", as...you know...I'm not posh)?

Thanks for this.

-H (aka the Trinny and Susannah hater, but someone that can't pick out her own clothes anyway).

UPDATED-I was trying them both on and deliberating when Angus told me to come outside, that the sunlight would show the real colors of everything. So I threw a bra on, put on a scarf and jewelry, and gave it a try (the hair appointment is tomorrow morning as this hairstyle here? The ponytail? This is the limit of my abilities, and since I have a big round Asian face I try to avoid the ponytail at all costs.)

Final shots of Dress A and B. Personally, I think I've made a choice, I'm just interested in the panel of experts here for their weigh-in. I'm sorry for being a pain and your comments are fantastic. To be honest, I'm most comfortable in my pajamas. I'm feeling really, really insecure about dressing up tomorrow. I don't do black tie. I do cheeky monkey pajama bottoms and toe socks.


Dress Option A (with the wrong scarf but I can't find the right one right now!)

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And Dress Option A from the side

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Dress Option B

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And Dress Option B from the side


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This Post Was Brought To You By The Makers of Karma

On Saturday we decided to go tour the BBC studios with Melissa and Jeff, as they had flown into town for the weekend.

It was one of the only events that we had planned as it wasn't too long a visit, and anyway Angus and I became the least interesting part of a visit to England-Melissa had found our Desperate Housewives DVDs and Jeff had come a long way in his Sims2 practice (including some kind of code in which he could cheat like a maniac, thus proving in the Sims game that money really can buy happiness. I knew it was true, I knew money could buy happiness, I've just never had the bank account to practice that one.) The kids spent most of the time incommunicado as they explored the brand new worlds that are Strangetown and Wisteria Lane, and we've put in rules for future visits about the amount of time they can spend on these things (plus we decided his daughter couldn't take the DVDs with her to Sweden. Even though she's nearly 14 and has seen much worse on Swedish or English television, when we saw the scene of Bree removing the handcuffs from the dishwasher we thought-Yeah. There is a hint of sexual conduct on this show. Melissa can totally handle this. Angus' ex, however, might just wig out, so these DVDs will stay here.)

The BBC visit was quite interesting actually-we toured around with a large Russian group (Uter, anyone?) and sat in a large glass conference room in which BBC News is run. It's an amazing room-it makes you feel a bit like you're in the movie Wall Street, with desks in some kind of random pattern, crumpled bags of takeout Chinese food on nearly every work surface, and the occasional doll or plastic action figure man there as a distraction. Cables as thick as pythons snaked around desks and everywhere you looked there were plasma TVs beaming BBC news from some part of the globe. It was a fabulous room, and the guide explained that we were in a glassed-in conference room as these are dangerous times now, and once a man rushed the doormen, ran up the stairs and tried to throw a sofa through the glass.

The guide asked if we had any questions. I decided I had one, but a New Zealander across the room asked his first, something about the broadcasting on BBC International. Angus asked about BBC interests in commercialization and user penetration in the UK. I decided to bottle my question as it didn't really fit in the same vein as the serious previous questions-I was going to ask if that guy who tried to throw a sofa into the control room had picked up the sofa somewhere along the BBC hallways or if he had brought his own.

Different strokes and all that.

We went into the BBC main reception, which is a Heritage listed site and now cannot be changed as it's part of the "fabric of the country". As we walked in, craning our heads around, the cute Irish tour guide waved her arm. "As you can see, this reception has an extremely unique style."

Yes. That style would be called "Early Fuck". The place was absolutely hideous-a complete homage to the 1960's, complete with floor to two-story ceiling wood panelling and a mosaic that just screamed of a Janis Joplin influence. The Brady family would have been so happy to be there they would have had a fake camp-out on the "groovy" tiles on the floor, unfolding their pup tents and talking about their feelings.

We moved on and got to watch a TV show called "Dick and Dom" being recorded-it's a kids' show with a simple premise-kids like stupid jokes, outrageous costumes, and the occasional bucket of goo thrown on people. I thought back and remembered how much I loved You Can't Say That on Television and figured they were right. We saw the set of Top of the Pops and watched a new Angus Deayton pilot called Pants on Fire being filmed. They showed us how some of the magic parts in the Harry Potter movies were filmed (and all this time I thought it was just magic. I'm such a simpleton.) When we were done we had a mock game of The Weakest Link, only it was based purely on an English show called One Foot in the Grave. Angus soundly throunced my and New Zealand Boys' asses as we got lost in translation. Karma. It was karma for attempting to get in a little Weakest Link practice.

When we got home Angus' family came to dinner. They brought the Screaming Children with them, and the Screaming commenced pretty much as soon as the door was opened. The kids homed in on Maggie and Mumin who can pretty much take care of themselves, so I wasn't too worried. They high-tailed it upstairs and I figured they were safe. What I hadn't figured on was the determination of one of the Screamers, a four year-old. She went after Maggie like a model after a billionaire, and when she came downstairs crying it was revealed that she had tried to pull Maggie out from under the bed by her paw and was rewarded with a warning bite that did not break the skin.

I soothed the boo-boo with a Care Bears Band-Aid (I KNEW they would come in handy I just knew it-good karma at work there) and a gentle request to leave the cats alone for the rest of the night.

When they left Jeff returned to the land of Sims and Melissa, facing a Desperate Housewives ban, begged me to watch a show with her that I had never watched. Faced with being the cool stepmother or being the uncool stepmother, I knew I had only once choice. I had to break down the superiority complex I had about shows like this and sit my butt down, keeping Melissa company. I finally caved and broke my resolve to not watch reality shows.

I watched my first (and second and, as far as I'm concerned, LAST) ever episode of American Idol.

I had to briefly debate my "no suicide" stance. The show was torture. I couldn't believe it. People with voices like those actually go on TV? Actually sing in front of people? I don't have a great voice, but you'd never see me in front of a camera giving it a go.

Angus giddily escaped the tortue of American Idol, but I got one back on him-his kids had learnt the first few verses of a song from Shrek 2, and I taught them the rest of the song-that evening I had them rocking and rolling with the lyrics to I Like Big Butts, we three extremely white people dancing around the study singing it.

I had my revenge.

Or so I thought, until I realized that they were wound up and couldn't sleep, singing Happy Happy Turkey Day from the Adams' Family for about half an hour after going to bed. Now that was definitely karma.

-H

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January 27, 2006

Um...Can I Have Your Attention Please? I'd Like to Propose a Toast?

It's the 27th of January.

The 27th.

Important for any number of reasons, unimportant for any other number of reasons, but to me, the 27th rings of a memory to me. A big one, a life-changing one.

It's three years today that I sat in my upstairs bathroom, the one with the yellow wallpaper patterned with white roses, and tried to kill myself.

It seems a lifetime ago, and I guess it was. I look back on that event and watch it as though seeing a movie, a plastic Baskin-Robbins spoon in my mouth as I scoop chocolate chocolate-chip out of a paper cup, watching the scene of my breakdown unfold in front of my eyes like a movie. I don't remember much of my movie, I remember more the feel of a plastic spoon in my mouth, the edge of the doorway pressing into the curve of my shoulder, one leg folded over the other in my casual stance of watching myself break down.

Disassociation is a blessing and a curse.

I don't remember much of that event, but I do remember the hospital afterwards. I remember the feel of the hard linoleum floor, the bars on the windows, the cries from the rooms. Institutions make the crazy even crazier. I was there too long, and inside myself too much.

It all started off the longest road yet. It was time I stopped running and hiding inside of myself and started to accept the fact that I was seriously fucked up, that I had to finally deal with things that were buried deep inside of me, things I was pretending were gone but never really left. So I opened my mouth and started talking. I went to a counselor while I waited to be allocated to a psychotherapist.

When I got my psychotherapist I started to breathe.

I started to talk, and I could no longer pretend I wasn't so fundamentally fucked up that giving up wasn't a choice.

Because giving up isn't a choice.

When I moved to England I lost that psychotherapist, but in many ways I think I gained a better one.

Three years after taking a bottle of pills and playing Fun Bob with a razor, I am more alive than I have ever been in my entire life. Work isn't my world, my family foundations have radically changed, I love a million tiny things in my life and a few great big ones, and I have a man who, although he maybe doesn't always handle some of my more painful issues very well, handles the rest of the package of schizoids and worries, quirks and traits better than anyone in the world. The chick that I am today is not the same chick that tried to kill herself.

The years of trying to kill myself are overwith. I am so far from perfect it makes me cringe, but I am worth more than that. Everyone is worth more than that. We are all worth more than a bottle of pills and a razor on a cold winter's night.

I may still have some issues, and I am definitely a bit bizarre (after returning from yoga I spent Thursday night talking with a poor Spanish accent and carrying Mumin around, pointing her in Angus' direction and saying (badly) "Say hello to my little friend!". I'm pretty sure normal people don't do that.) But my crazy has a base, it has a root. My crazy has an end. My crazy may never go away, but at least I can talk about it now.

I'm sticking it out. Life now on the thin wedge is way more alive than it has ever been, hard times and all (infertility! My One Person's up the duff! I have a job I hate! I still can't fucking do natarajasana (the cosmic dancer pose)! But life? She is more amazing than it has ever been, suck parts, great parts, hard parts.

So I survived trying to top myself.

In the big game of life I got the cookie.

Here's to three years of life, babes.

Same time next year, yeah?

-H.

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January 26, 2006

God We're Old

You know that scene from Sleepless in Seattle, when long-haired Meg and her fiancée are sitting on the bed together going through a routine of various unguents and health-care rituals before turning in? How coordinated and perfect the entire movement is, like synchronized swimming for the somnolent?

Yeah.

That's us.

Since coming back from San Francisco with a cold the size of Colin Farrell's ego, I've been big on the cold meds. Though Statia sent me Zicam, I've been reluctant to use it as, you know, then I'd use it up. I'd be out of Zicam. Out. And what happens if the Queen Mother of colds comes to stay? It comes, and I'm out of Zicam, a lovely cold product I can't get here in the UK? It would be tragedy.

I know-fucked-up way of thinking about it. Gratitude for things that you don't want to use and then they're gone.

So I've been resorting to the old-fashioned remedies. Not poultices made of mustard on the chest or holding my head over a bowl of steam or hanging the body of a chicken under the Zodiac moon on the front door or anything, but each night at bedtime I've been making out with my boy Vick. Vick, my new lover. Vick, family name Vap-o-Rub.

Remember when you had to have that shit as a kid and you hated it? Did you ever suspect that as you got older you'd love the stuff? That you would look forward to smelling like a menthol air freshener? Am I the only one who finds the smell sexy (but then, I love me the smell of rubbing alcohol. I could quit my job and become a professional hypochondriac for the fabulous smells alone.)

I've also been getting to know Ben. Ben Adryl. He's an ok chap, a little wussy maybe, but a reliable kind of guy.

I wake up with a head full of snot and the inability to pop my ears, but once they do squeak open after holding my breath so hard I nearly fart out my nose, the feeling is so painfully fantastic that I think I orgasm just a little bit. Angus has had a cold for the better part of two months, and you can find him by following the trail of nose sprays he leaves behind him. The cats often helpfully relocate these items for him, so I think we have about a dozen bottles of nose spray on the go. We've gone through the store-bought English cold medication like it was a packet of Skittles, which, considering how useful it is, it probably is a packet of Skittles.

But we have other routines. According to statistics, while sleeping, one man in eight snores, and one in ten grinds his teeth. Well I'm with a man who does one of them, and it got to the point where not a night was spent that both of us slept unless intoxicating hangover amounts of alcohol were involved. My cute boy snores and always has done, only for some reason it started keeping me up about 6 months ago (when I have a cold I snore, but my boy sweetly can sleep through it. He's a keeper and A BETTER PERSON THAN I.) In turn, he felt so terrible about keeping me up that he asked me to kick him when he snored. So I would, only it would wake him up, and this ritual so impacted him that he became a light sleeper, to the point where if I kicked him he stayed awake.

A few months went by where only one of us would get any sleep each night.

Then Angus came across this throat spray. He bought it in desperation, but actually it works. It has become our routine, along with the following:

After washing our faces and brushing our teeth, we go to bed. We take off the clothes and sit on our respective sides of the bed. I blow my nose and use an ocean spray wash to try to help my over-Kleenexed nose get some feeling back in it. Then I make sure there's an extra Kleenex on my side of the bed and one tucked into my pillow, just in case he snores.

Angus lays back on the bed and sprays three times on the back of his throat, and then I count to twenty while the medication rolls all over the back of his tongue and throat. Strangely, I can never make it to twenty without yawning, but when we're done, we're done. Then he sits up uses tea tree oil on any ouchies or boo-boos that he may have.

It's all crunchy granola all the time here.

I apply my Boots lip balm and rub lotion over my lizard-scaly winter elbows.

He unpacks a nose strip, one of those Breathe Right things, and applies it to the bridge of his nose.

After ensuring both of our water bottles are filled, I take a last sip before checking that it and my glasses are within arms' reach. You know. In case one of the cats is playing with matches by the side of the bed and gets a bit careless and I then need to put out the fire. Something like that.

Angus settles in sideways in bed. He has an anti-social reading stance, so I curl my legs around his butt and read my own book, using the light from his side of the bed. I hate bright reading areas. I have my own reading light but prefer not to use it, I can't read if the reading light is so bright you can flag down planes with it.

Inevitably I will get up an pee again. Sometimes I need to do this, sometimes I don't, but more often than not I feel like there's a bit of liquid in the pipe that I may need to remove.

If we've taken melatonin (a regular event these days) then we wait for it to kick in.

If I have a meeting the next day, I do one last check of the mobile phone. We are so fucking telecom-oriented that we don't use regular clocks (even though I have a fabulous clock, a 1980's cow clock that, if you use the alarm, plays out the sound of a cow bell ringing, followed by the cow saying: 'Moo! Wake up! Don't sleep your life away!' I fucking love that clock and paid a fortune for it on ebay, despite having had that clock as a kid and paying about $10 for it. But the cow is only used if absolutely essential that we get up, like if we have a flight or something as paranoia-inducing as that. Otherwise, we use the phones).

He turns the light off and I announce in a sing-song voice: 'Lights out! Angus has decided it's time to go to sleep!'

If we have sex we kick it off. Once we conclude, I dash (knees together) to the toilet to drain. I just can't go to sleep with a hooch full of spooge, I just can't. I know it's all rough and tumble to do so, every guy must love that idea, but I don't personally know anyone who can do that (anyone? Am I alone in the Sperm Drain Dash?) When I return, invariably to the wet spot side of the bed, we curl up together, him behind me.

Then we sleep until either the phones go off or the Land Rover next door wakes us up, where we then start out our morning routines.

Life. It's a series of products from Eckerd's.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

We are so ready for our retirement home in Florida now.

-H.


PS-Dear J from B (I am not sure if you want anonymity or not, so I'll go on the safe side here!) I love the books. Love them. The pigeon is fantastic.

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January 25, 2006

Who's A Few Sandwiches Short of a Picnic?

Monday night I slept like a fucking rock. It was called melatonin and about 3 hours of sleep in 36 hours. When I woke, I felt amazingly refreshed, so much so that I thought I'd fully recovered from the jet lag.

Jet lag is a temporary disorder that causes fatigue, insomnia, and other symptoms as a result of air travel across time zones.

My day was planned to be pretty calm-meetings have generally ground to a halt and, thanks to me going through a depression over recent events, I have been stunningly apathetic as well. I have over 1100 unread emails. I don't see that number going down any time soon. I did have to go to London, though-I had an appointment with my therapist comfortably set in the afternoon, so it was a calm commute. Angus was off to the head office in the late morning, and as I decided to go out and do a good deed, I got my coat on and went outside to scrape the windshield of the car that he would be driving. Which is where I saw that the car I would be driving to the station later that day had a tire as flat as my sister's chest.

Goodrich, BF The company started in 1896 has many firsts: First synthetic rubber tire, first tubeless tire, first American-made radial tire, the first space saver spare and the first "run flat" tire.

There was much swearing.

As neither of us had time yesterday or today to deal with said puncture, we carpooled up and I dropped him off at the station. Returning to the house, I showered, grabbed yet another cup of coffee, and then got ready. I dressed in my Statia-approved butt hugging jeans (pictures of said denim products to come), then I drove our one functioning car to the train station, where I hopped the train to London.

The first steam powered train was invented by Robert Stephenson.

And I played with my Nintendog the entire way. Once in London, I got on the tube and rode it forever to the suburb where my therapist is. I walked through the freezing cold neighborhood, iPod in action, and when I got to the house he shares with other therapists, I had to wait downstairs in the lounge as someone with issues was running over into my time.

I glanced at the bookshelf. It was full of crunchy hunchy love shit, like 'Men are From Mars', 'Anger-Control It, Beat It, Live With It', and 'Magical Acupuncture'. It was right about when I saw an entire shelf of Carlos Castenada that I wondered if I should get my tie dye and my peyote out. Carlos fucking Castenada! I was relieved by the fact that at least the therapists all shared one good trait-they had the entire series of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' on DVD. I wonder what that says about the therapists.

They also had the entire Stanley Kubrik collection on DVD, I think that says even more about them.

When my meeting kicked off, it was unfortunately floods of tears. I think I cried for the entire hour, as I was able to tell him about the One Person episode, which I hadn't been able him about since we had a two week lapse between appointments. It was a good visit, even though I was furious that I had made it a week without crying and here I was, a fucking basket case all over again.

450 million people worldwide are affected by mental, neurological or behavioral problems at any time. About 873,000 people die by suicide every year.

I head home and pre-cook us a dish of macaroni and cheese, which we would warm up after we had an event in the evening.

The Chinese are on record as having eaten pasta as early as 5000 BC.

When we returned home, we chowed down on the baked mac n cheese and then settled in for some TV time. I've been deliciously happy to see my boy again, despite him not liking the Care Bear Band-Aids (or the Little Nemo ones I also purchased!) When we went to bed his fingers ran up and down my neck, then his hands ran up and down my back, then other things were involved as we had the second round of loving in 12 hours (we'd missed each other, really.) I fell asleep curled up in his arms, happy as a bug.

There are roughly 21 words in Latin for the word 'love'.

-H.

PS-What? What's with the trivia bits, you ask? Oh yeah. I forgot to mention it! So after I dropped Angus off at the train station in the morning, my phone rang. My pajama'ed self debated not answering, but in the end I did hit the 'yes' button on the pink phone. It was a producer for the BBC. They called to tell me that they loved my application and had advanced me and 14 others to the final round of auditions for 'The Weakest Link'. My audition is next Wednesday, and will determine if I make it on the show or not.

All that useless trivia in my head will hopefully come in handy after all.

Fuck I'm scared.

Often referred to as your 'fight-or-flight' system, your sympathetic nervous system prepares your body for emergencies. It shunts your blood to your muscles and increases your blood pressure, heart rate and breathing rate, enabling you to cope with stressful situations.

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January 24, 2006

Guerilla Tactics Are a Piece of Cake

Thursday morning my dear boy dropped me off at Heathrow, and about a thousand kisses and waves later, he was on his way to a meeting and I was on my way to Statia and her Meester's house. I had to check my bag in as I was taking the big suitcase, crammed as it was with illegal produce like cheese, sausages, and Irn Bru (which, surprise surprise, is also illegal in the U.S. I didn't know this, but I enjoy the whole "smuggling" element that is gifts from England. This is as close to criminal activity I will ever get). Plus, I would have to be taking a train set back with me. That's right. A train set. My boss man had specific requests for a model train set that he wanted from the States, and I could buy myself some "get out of his crazy" time if I brought one back, so bring one back I would.

I have been travelling for many years. Since 1998, I have been travelling for work (for some years to the tune of three weeks out of every month). Since 2000, I've been flying to places for fun. What do I have to show for it? An immune system that's shot, three frequent flier cards that have taken me on three different holidays due to miles earned, and seat tactics that are now an exact science. Between Angus and I we know every trick in the book to trying to get upgraded, moved to the good seats, how to be best placed to utilize the potential for empty seats, and when and when not to offer to suck dick if it'll get you a better seat.

(I am kidding there. I would never suck dick to get a better seat (although could be tempted to do so on the 30-hour flight we have back from NZ.) I would, however, resort to bribery if I thought for a moment it would work.)

I had checked in online (Travel Rule number 1-always check in online first if you can. You avoid the queues and have some possibility to get a decent seat. That, and you feel all posh just going to bag drop-off, as though you are nearly in first class but you aren't.) and so made my way to my favorite airline's check-in desk. I tried a sob story tactic of why I needed to be upgraded, but the woman's supervisor was there so she kindly offered to instead sell me an upgrade for more than my entire ticket cost.

Strangely, I was not so tempted.

So I checked in. I had booked myself a seat online already, and it was strategically done so that I would likely get the seat next to me as well. When I got onboard, I was even happier-the flight was largely empty. After stowing my tray table and personal belongings and returning my seat to its full and upright position, I was able to move to an entire window seat row that was completely empty.

Life was good.

I watched video-on-demand (Dear Airlines-please, won't all of you get video-on-demand? Please? It makes your life and our life so much easier. Thank you.) I made my way through The Island, In Her Shoes, and Mr & Mrs. Smith (Dear Jennifer Aniston-if you watch this film for even five seconds it is pretty clear that he was cheating on you. Sorry babe. But if they made up that chemistry? Yeah. They should get Oscars.) as well as a few episodes of CSI.

Then I landed. After clearing immigration and getting my bag, I was freaked out about the queues for customs, as nearly everyone was getting their bags searched. I knew that I had some goods in the bag that would be taken (and the Virgin Airlines steward had cheerfully announced that the US had imposed a new law, so that not only would cheese and meats be confiscated but if we were found with them, we'd be fined $2500.) I saw the queue, the men with the bright blue rubber gloves and the dogs, and I briefly debated going into the ladies' room and throwing the goods away. But then I decided to be made of sterner stuff.

I got out the pink phone and pretended to be talking on it, so I could completely ignore the woman trying to herd us into the customs exam queue. Pretending to talk and be all exhausted, I steered right around her to another guy, flashed an enormous smile at him, and cheerfully called "Have a nice day!" as he motioned me past the exam queues and right out the door.

My cheese and I had made it.

So Statia? Yeah. She's gorgeous. Gorgeous and tiny. I know she talks of having junk in the trunk but seriously-she's so small and perfect you want to scoop her up and carry her. If the building was on fire I have no doubt that she would be saved as firemen fought over who could bravely spirit her out of the building, while someone built like me would be asked to hold the hose and give it a good college try.

She was also great company from the word go-funny, easy-going, honest and kind. In general I'm not really good at meeting new people (it might be because I am paralyzed by huge social situations, who knows) and I have a hard time understanding the huge blogger get-togethers that occur (I don't generally meet other bloggers are both Angus and I are extremely private, and I am in blogging for personal therapy reasons, less for being a part of a "community"). But not for one second while I was there did I feel bored, weirded out, or strange. She was simply great fun.


Statia and M


They have a teeny tiny dog named Miss M, who is a diva in the making. She occasionally nearly tolerated me, although her memory, it's not so good. After 30 minutes of nearly tolerating me, if I walked out of the room and back into it, I got a thorough barking at. The good news is, if she ever meets Maggie they'll get on great. Turns out the Bichon Frise tampon that I brought with me to prove that we really do have super extra plus tampons in England was just as popular with Miss M as it was with Maggie.


Groucho Marx


Her Meester? He's a riot. He's a real gentleman (he holds doors open! And goes to fetch dinner! And keeps me supplied in chewable melatonin!) with a wicked sense of humor that can hunt out a double entendre at twenty paces.

He also, strangely enough, likes Irn Bru.


An English feast

And as evidenced by the smorgasbord of Lincolnshire sausages, crumpets, and Goucestshire cheese, they both liked the English food and he washed it all down with that nasty Irn Bru shit. I can't believe he likes it. I bought it utterly convinced he would hate the stuff, but there you have it.

They are the cutest family imaginable.


CIMG1661.JPG


But I have to come clean about something. While there, I found a new lover. My heart has been stolen away from Angus and given to a new man. He's the man of my dreams, a gorgeous creature who has settled in my heart completely.


G Man


The time in San Francisco was utterly relaxing. It wasn't about racing to Alcatraz and touring the wharf. It wasn't about Ghirardelli or the Golden Gate bridge. It was about mojitos and sleeping on the softest sheets in the world and talking about our IVF protocols that are coming up and getting to know my new sister. Because my new sister (and brother, actually) helped me get over the hell that was the past two weeks so well that I can think about my One Person's pregnancy without crying now.

I didn't feel any of my usual "I don't belong in any world" feelings I often get when I go to the States-instead I loaded up on over the counter cold meds, Target socks, Sephora and Ulta products (including a brown bubble bath that is heaven and strangely isn't at all weird to see brown water in the bathtub) and Statia did her damndest to make sure that I bought clothes that fit. She took me to Janeville, where they have the world's most comfortable jeans. And, discarding the size 14 monsters that I have been wearing, she handed me some jeans and firmly shut the door behind me. Unbelievably, I am a size 10. Even more unbelievably, I fit a size 8. I bought jeans that I love uncontrollably, and as Angus' hands were on my waist last night, I can tell you-he loves the jeans, too.

We dressed up her dogs.


More fun than should be legal

We drank, we ate, we bought a few things (Angus doesn't like my Care Bear band-aids, Statia. Who knew?) And when I said goodbye, I really meant it when I said I'd miss them (I do).

Then I got on the plane and the guerilla tactics started back up. I boarded and scope the situation. I am in the middle row of four seats, on the aisle. There is someone on the end of the aisle so I will not have the row to myself. The plane is largely empty, but getting a whole aisle to myself would take some maneuvering. And as the plane was a red-eye flight and I would have to try to get some sleep, I knew a whole row was needed. I can't sleep on planes unless I can stretch out, otherwise I get severely agitated and then can't climb down from the ceiling. We took off, all of us plotting on how to get a row to ourselves. We were told by the cabin staff we could move around as soon as the seat belt sign was turned off, so there we were, plotting.

But I am the master.

As soon as the ding! was heard there I was, seat belt unclipped and me using my backpack as numchucks. I hurled my body down the aisle to the very last row of the plane and spread the fuck out. It took all of about .3 seconds for me to do this entire manouver, and I was ruthless. Fighting leprosy and want the aisle? Put that nose of yours back on, buddy, and bite me. I fought for this. The flight attendant laughed and said he'd never seen anyone move that fast, to which I replied: Darwinism? A practical application on an airplane.

Most of us got rows or a majority of rows anyway, so I stretched out, took a Tylenol PM, and slept a bit. Monday I was really in and out of consciousness due to severe jet lag and a cold I seem to have picked up on the airplane, despite using Airborne, but I think I'm ok now. When I picked up my bags, I was shocked to see that the train set, packed as it was in a sealed brown box, had gotten the scoping-it was covered in Department of Homeland Security inspection tape.

Nice.

I miss my sister, though. My new one, whose pregnancy I would celebrate like a madman.

And I'm nursing a healthy addiction to Family Guy.

-H.

PS-Angus very sweetly put together my web design for my other site while I was away. I should be posting on it today, time permitting (if not I'll kick it off tomorrow morning). If you want the link, let me know-I'm not going to publicly post it on this site. Houston? We are up and running.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:52 AM | Comments (40) | Add Comment
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January 19, 2006

There Is Such a Thing As Too Intimate

Tuesday I went to the IVF clinic for one last test (but that's what they always say, it's always one last test. Then I get a phone call asking me to come in and donate blood when the moon is in Aries or participate in a Hopi fertility dance or some other weird shit like that.) So I head off again to get tested.

This time, the clinic is empty. There are no hopeful couples holding hands nervously, no one staring studiously at the latest edition of Hello!, no one sipping coffee from a plastic cup. Strangely the newspaper was spread over the coffee table screaming about Gordon Brown about to become a father again (you'd think the hospital would weed this kind of thing out, as the waiting room is generally filled with infertile women hopped up on incredible amounts of synthetic hormones), but I guess that free speech does work even in fertility clinics.

I'm flipping through a magazine admiring Pink's wedding dress when the nurse calls my name.

'Hi Helen, sorry to keep you waiting,' she says, smiling.

'No worries,' I reply.

'This is Louise,' the nurse says, pointing to a young woman that looks like she's on the better side of her twenties (i.e. she lined up to get Baby Spice's autograph when they played Royal Albert Hall.) 'If it's ok, Louise is going to observe and assist?'

Oh dear.

See, I always get the newbies. Always. I recognize that it's all a learning process, that hands-on is good, that training is needed, blah blah blah. But it must be something about my face or my naïve 'I'm an American' accent-I get every trainee that comes along. If there's a trainee phlebotomist around, I am getting her, as she compliments me on my enormous veins in my arms and then fails to find a single one of them but does make enough track marks for anyone who sees me in short sleeves to ask if I've looked into an honorary membership to Narcotics Anonymous. If there is a trainee dentist I swear she gets out the Black and Decker drill and cackles with glee. But in general, I don't mind if trainees are around.

Except this test, it's a chlamydia swab, a standard for IVF patients here but the one test they forgot to do. And a chlamydia swab? Yup. It's a knees up in the stirrups deal. So trainee chick would be the first trainee that is looking eye level at the female equivalent of the crown jewels.

I sigh. 'Sure, she can watch. Just no pictures on the web, ok?'

We walk into the exam room, and the nurse starts raising the stirrups. 'You're long-legged, so we need to make sure the stirrups are nice and long,' she says. She hands me a long blue napkin that is the equivalent of the world's largest roadside gas station paper towel and instructs me to take my jeans and knickers off and wear the paper towel around my waist. I do this, and then I look up to see she's getting the speculum out.

The speculum. A woman's best friend. The next guy that whines to me about a prostate exam, I will level him with the following-you're bitching about a finger. A finger. Instead, try a speculum, a piece of cold steel that is shaped like a duck's beak, only once it's inserted in you it opens up wide, not unlike a duck's beak, and holds things wide open. So as far as the finger concerns go, until you get the equivalent of two hands reaching in and propping the butt passage open 4 inches, this conversation is closed.

'Are you ok with this, Helen?' asks the nurse.

'Oh sure, I breeze. No problem.' I reply, heading for the table.

And suddenly, I become a babbling idiot.

'I mean, I've had a number of speculums in me due to IVF, pap smears, you know and I've had sex. Lots of sex. I mean-not lots of sex with lots of different people, that would make me a whore and I am so not a whore, I mean lots of sex with the same person which is totally different.'

Shut up, Helen.

'And pap smears, they're old hat but you know how you always get those old duffer gynecologists that insist on making small talk with you when they're here but the whole time I'm like-seriously, man, just get the fingers in and out, woudja'?'

Ohmigod, shut up, Helen, shut up!

My legs slide off the edge of one of the stirrups, sending it wildly swinging towards the nurse's head. I go into babbling overdrive and am talking without breathing in a voice two octaves above my normal speaking voice.

'OhmigodI'msorryI'mnotnervousatallandIdon'thavetoomuchsexhowaboutwejust getthisoverwith?"

SHUT UP YOU FUCKING IDIOT, SHUT UP!

The exam begins. The trainee stares hard at my beaver, and it's difficult to feel normal about this. The speculum goes in, I try to take shallow breaths, and then at the end the nurse instructs the trainee on how to remove the speculum. 'You undo the screw but don't release the tension, as that causes the sides to flab in.'

Oh my God. I'm in hell. I have a flabby hooch.

'All women have this happen to them, when the speculum is removed it's like the Red Sea re-parting,' the mind-reading nurse says to me, raising over my raised knees to assure me.

Oh my God, my space is of Biblical proportions.

The whole embarrassment thus over, I dress and get my ass out of there as fast as possible, reassured that I am finally done with all of these tests.

Thus beginneth round 2 shortly.

-H.

PS-If anyone needs me I'll be on a 12 hour flight to San Francisco, where I hope to rabbit punch the guy who created Rice-a-Roni as I hate that shit. For the next 12 hours I'll be watching video on demand, hating humanity, stressing about if I picked the right seat or not and if the beagles will come by in the airport and find Statia's cheese, and missing Angus terribly.

I'll be doing that last one a whole lot.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:30 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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January 18, 2006

And the Other Thing

On the way from from Dog's Trust yesterday I found that the GPS gods directed me through Basingstoke. This was convenient as I needed to pick up more of my contact lenses and the shopping center in Basingstoke was where I was stupid enough to have my prescription. So I drove into the massive concrete wonder, parked up, and went into the Basingstok equivalent of a shopping mall.

January is the month of sales here, and so every store had whited out their window fronts with hure white and red signs screaming "50%!" or "60%!" or even "70%!". And it was the 70% welcome on the front of Monsoon that saw me enter.

Monsoon has some relatively cute clothes if you can work out why they sell sparkly tunics alongside what equates to a high school prom dress. It's an interesting store and a popular high street chain. The thing is, the cut of their clothes tends to be a bit strange, and when you're 5 foot 10 like me you find that the cut of the outfit, well, it's kind of an important thing.

I found a few shirts I wanted to try on-I have been all about the black and brown, but these shirts were in colors that looked like gemstones-a vivid green, a husky purple, and a sparkly burgundy. These were shirts that had a color to them that made me think of the Egyptian desert and pirate bounty. These were shirts that said: The person wearing me? She likes color.

But more to the point-these shirts were form-fitting.

And that's when I had my moment.

As I told my therapist a few weeks ago, my body is something I have a terrifically hard time with. The older I get the harder it is to shed pounds, and it's a fact that I have put on 5 pounds in the past year. But at the same time, my legs have become as strong as steel due to yoga, they are almost completely muscle. While fighting the middle-age spread that is backfat, I have put on some strong yoga shoulder muscles. And even when I used to starve myself, my clothing size would always stay the same simply because my frame is so specific-I literally do have a wide hook-that-yoke-up frame, with long legs, no waist, and no butt.

There in the hostile glow of the fluorescent lighting of the dressing room, I had a good long look at myself.

And I realized that I had to be more honest to myself about what I see.

I am in the frame of some of these pictures we took from the weekend, when we went to visit our soon-to-be-house. When I looked at those pictures, I was in shock. I looked so huge it was unreal, I looked like the Stay-Pufft Marshmallow Man, I was hideous. I wanted to never eat again.

But I looked at them in my mind as I looked at myself wearing a fitted shirt in the dressing room. I took the shirt off and put my sweater back on. I then swapped it for the fitted shirt again. And I realized that my own defense mechanism that was working so well it was even defeating me.

For some time now, I have been buying clothes a size or two too big for me. My jeans are two sizes too big and have to be belted just to stay on my pelvic bones. The sweater I was wearing was two sizes too big and bubbled up so much in the back due to the size that it looked like I was channeling Lou Ferrigno. Standing there in the dressing room, I took the belt off of my jeans and looked at myself with the shirt on, the jeans lolling somewhere around the jut of the pelvic bone.

I wasn't as disgustingly fat as I saw myself in my own head.

I wasn't Jennifer Aniston by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn't fat.

I went and got a size medium top and tried it on, as opposed to the extra-large I had worn a minute ago. The medium fit me perfectly. And I realized that every moment I feel fat projects itself out into how I hold myself and how I dress myself.

They say that the average man (once he's finished lusting after Angelina Jolie) is turned on by a woman that is confident in herself. That although the average man says he wants a woman with a body like Naomi Watts to play with his Cadillac of Love, the truth is it's more about the woman than the woman's body. So we can look like Roseanne Barr, but as long as we are comfortable and confident in ourselves, then the men will love us. That if we're all about being willing to shed our clothes at the drop of the hat to have some wild monkey loving, it's less about what size we are and more about how we make the other person feel-like we love how we look so much we want to share it with them.

To which I say-riiiiiight. And this is why you have a comfy body like Star Jones in Playboy, as opposed to someone that hasn't eaten since 1987. Because men, they DO like round curvy bodies. They want more cushion for the pushin' and so they glorify the female wobbly body in all its glory!

But if the truth is that men don't mind an extra pound or two (or four or five or ten or twenty) they just enjoy someone that feels good about their body, then those are parameters I can try to work with. I can do the wild monkey loving and not worry about what I look like, because during Simian whoopie there are more important things to worry about. That's an easy one. But get me on a beach and suddenly I'm doing the dive and cover, as without fail there's someone there who's hotter than me, someone who makes me feel like I could do with a good two weeks without food.

Why is it so fucking hard to like how we look? Who are we judging ourselves against, and why does it have to be like that? Further to that, why do we have to feel less of a person around the Thinner People, or around the men that we kow idolize a female ideal that they will never achieve (bad news men-Demi Moore will never be yours. Sorry about that.)?

I've never liked how I look and have the anorexia paranoia scars to prove it. My One Person has always been a size 0, a tiny short petite thing that likes to have her hot fudge sundaes topped with nuts and a double bacon cheeseburger, thank you very much. Whereas for me, not only have hot fudge sundaes been off the menu since puberty, but if I eat so much as a grape I bloat so badly I'm into the Kmart nylon knickers category.

Kim always wanted me to look like Leeloo from Fifth Element, but that never happened. Mostly since the orange hair? A bit career limiting. And I wasn't so keen to run around in an outfit that was the equivalent of an Ace bandage, not to mention the fact that unlike Milla Jovovich, I like to eat. So I was never his ideal, really. I had the long red hair that he loved, but wearing Band-Aids over my nipples was not considered day wear for me.

Angus likes short haired, robust women. He likes women that look healthy and have curves on their bodies. Since short hair on me tends to make my face look like a lollipop on a stick I can see that I will be a long-haired chick for the better part of my life. But the robust? I got your robust. I have escaped Rubaneqsue, thank God, but I've got the curves. The good news is even after all the years we've known each other Angus still tells me that he absolutely loves my body.

I've never been the person I wanted to be (namely as thin as Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and cute and short like her to boot). That's the person I want to look like, but the person I am is tall (too tall), long legs, no waist and boobs that even after being reduced are (in my opinion) still too big. I am built like peasant stock, I could be used to hold up wooden window shields in a hurricane zone, I can pull a plow, I can survive a crop failure. I see myself as being huge and ungainly and unpleasant.

But seeing myself in the mirror...

I don't know why I'm putting myself in clothes that are the wrong size. I stood there, turning one way and then the other, looking in the mirror. With the belt taken off the jeans sagged, their two sizes sliding down my hips. Sure, there's an inch to pinch here and there on my body. There's room for improvement. But overall? It's not that bad. It's not going to win me America's Top Model, but then why do I need to? I may not be beautiful but people don't go running and screaming at the sight of me. I'm not tiny but I don't need two seats on an airplane (actually I do, but that's because my legs are too long and I can't sit still and I fidget so much that I always wind up the guy in front of me, so having two seats really fixes that.)

This morning I looked through old archived digital pictures of me from the past 4 years and think-my body looks great. I look healthy and good and slender. I look at those pictures and see myself and remember that I was embarrassed and ashamed of my body back then-but why? And I'm embarassed and ashamed of myself now-but I still wear those clothes, they still fit, so does this mean I look ok now, too?

In the UK, my body size is actually under-average. The average size of a woman here is a UK-sized 16, and I am not a 16. Grape-eating bloat notwithstanding, if I don't have the bloat the stomach's relatively flat. The legs are thin. My pelvis juts out. I punish myself constantly, I feel best about myself if I am skipping meals, I buy clothes so large that I am drowning in them. The comments from my boss and additional comments made by a neighbor haunt me.

But fuck them.

I'm not perfect. I'm not gorgeous or a size 4. I'd like to lose some weight and I hope to make that happen. But I need to stop beating myself up that I am less than I should be simply because I am not 100% proud of my body. I'm proud of my body when I'm in yoga class. I'm proud of my body when I'm having wild monkey loving with my robust-curvy-healthy-body-lovin' Angus. And while I was standing there, I realized was proud of my body in that dressing room.

I bought the shirts.

I am going to wear the shirts.

I am going to make myself wear the shirts and not cower under my extra large sweaters.

And I am going to work on accepting that this is the package I will live in for the rest of my life, so how's about respecting it. I don't kid myself that I'm going to be ok, that I won't watch something on TV and feel like shit for not being that small, that I won't feel nervous at snapping on that swimsuit and heading to the beach, that I won't hate how I look in pictures. I am not fixed, happy, or healthy about my body. But I have a lifetime ahead of me, one comprised of Angus holding on to my curves and my body stretching out its muscles onto a yoga mat. It's about fucking time I stopped punishing myself for being the person that people in my past think I should be and started accepting-this is me, and this me can wear fitted shirts.

Hopefully someday I will like myself.

-H.

PS-And she's agreed to help me shop for clothes, especially jeans that will fit me, as I head off on an airplane to her home tomorrow. You know. Because neither of us likes to shop or anything.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:55 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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January 17, 2006

One of Two Things

Two things occurred yesterday which gave me pause in my current thinking, which temporarily hid my blackened color walls with purple wallpaper-it's still dark, but it's different. The outside world is still cruel and evil, but for a while there was something to take my attention away. One thing I'll write about tomorrow after I've had a little more time to understand it, but I'm ready for the other thing.

It goes a little like this.

I take a shower and get in the car. I programme Dog's Trust in Newbury into the GPS and I drive, the radio off, the sun breaking through the winter rains over Berkshire's rolling hills. The heater is on in the car and I am wearing a hat pulled down low. When I get to Dog's Trust, I find it's an enormous expanded barn in the middle of nowhere.


Dogs Trust.jpg


I go in and fill out an application. As we haven't moved yet and our landlord company is a dirty rat bastard, there's no way we can have a dog until we move. But since the process takes time-they come to your house to check out your situation, they check the progress with the dogs-I think starting now is a good idea. We are the penultimate household-we'll have a huge house and a yard that's a fifth of an acre, all fenced in, with an enormous field just outside of our house for longer walks and games of fetch. I've had dogs all of my life, even "difficult" breeds, and have trained them before. It will be an only dog, and the only requirement we have is that the dog must like cats (as much as I want a dog, my girls have to come first. Since they were raised with a dog, I'm not worried about their part-they'll be pissed off, but I think they'll recover from that.)

The place is heartbreaking-throughout the place are older dogs, too old to adopt, who sleep on dog beds and look at you with kind eyes. They are not in the kennels or cages but take a small space in the hallway, under a bench, behind the desk. As they're too old to adopt the center keeps them until they pass away or have to be put down, and they are kind and gentle residents who seem so soft and grateful to finally have a place to call their own.

Dog's Trust is kind and friendly but they are a charity, and as such rely on donations (please, please consider donating. Please. That's my only plea for money, and it's not for me.) As Dog's Trust shelters are no-kill shelters, they take care of the dogs until they can find a home for them, and many of the little darlings were strays found lost and wandering, some were abused, some were abandoned, some just haven't found the right person that wants to love them as much as they want to love back. They work hard with the ones that were beaten, neglected, or have trust issues, working with them to teach them that not all people are bad, that sometimes the hand that reaches out is done so in kindness. Dog's Trust homes are being re-built with more lavish facilities, but for now it's the same as you'd expect at a shelter-rows and rows of metal bars and concrete. The English rain meant that everything was wet and cold, including the dogs.


Kennels.jpg


I don't fault Dog's Trust one bit-at least they're trying. Most of the dogs had worn out toys and even though staff had come by to pick up their blankets out of the rain, the blankets were worse for wear and the wind blew the cold rain all over the place anyway. It was freezing cold outside, and the concrete was soaked through. I walked through the rows, reading up the stats for the dogs that hang on the outside of each cage. Even though there were a number of dogs whose dossiers said they couldn't be with cats (the center has a resident cat that can seriously hold his own. They let the dog out near the cat, and if the dog starts to chase the cat then the dog gets stricken off for homes with cats.) my fingers went through the bars to pet them all. With soft whimpering and pleading eyes, each dog wanted to get out of the rain, to have a house where someone would just love them and throw a fucking ball for them from time to time. Some of these dogs are trying to overcome the horrible things that have happened to them, to just have a second chance.

And I'm a huge believer in the idea that we all can have a second chance.

I spent an hour there, going from cage to cage and petting the owners of the wagging tails.


Buddy.jpg


She was a sweetie, who nabbed my heart. She was painfully thin and extremely shy, but you could see in her eyes that all she wanted was to be on the other side of the bars and leaning against you.


Grommitt.jpg


He was a center-described cheeky chap. A nice Russell, and even though he was too small and a cat-chaser, he was good company.

But my heart was sold when I met Reggie. He was 5, and had been there for a while. He had a bright happy personality, isn't a cat chaser, and is housetrained. Apparently, he loves long walks and playing fetch. I looked at him and was hit by a strong feeling, an image of him and I going through obedience training. I would look down at him and say, "Hey babe. Are we ready to give this a try?". And in my image, he looked up at me, tail wagging, bright brown eyes grinning, and with a soft chuff he confirmed that we could do it.


Reggie.jpg


When I reached through the bars to stroke his face he held very, very still, as though the action was something that he had to pay complete attention to. His tail went at 100 mph. He spent the entire time I was kneeling in front of his cage trying to push his body on the other side of the bars, to be on the other side with me.


I Wanna Be Where You Are.jpg


I think I'm in love. But I am not kidding myself that I can have him now, we have to move first. So I'll go back often and spend time with him, and if he gets adopted I will be happy and sad. I hope for Angus to meet him, and if he loves him too, maybe we can see about being a family.

And when I go back, I'm going with toys and blankets.

Because it's not ok for them to be cold and wet, when the only thing they've done wrong is not be in the right place at the right time to find the right person to love them.

I know how that feels.

-H.

PS-I lied. Please, once more, if you find you have an extra $5 then consider winging it towards Dog's Trust. They're the kindest people who are simply trying to give a dog another chance. Spread the word, please-there are what, 6 million blogs? If we all gave a buck or two, wouldn't that mean that there would be no need for cold wet concrete?

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 09:42 AM | Comments (20) | Add Comment
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January 16, 2006

Just Making the Days Pass

So the weekend came and went, and now I sit here in my usual space-in front of the pc with my work email open and my headache present. I swapped Bird York for Howie Day this weekend, as once I heard the lyric "Even the best fall down sometimes" I thought, Howie? Let's talk. I am not the best but fuck it-I fall down, man, and half the time I don't know how or when to get back up.

I thought a lot about this blog this weekend. I wondered if I should close it down, password protect it, move somewhere else. In the end, I have decided that this is my space, my blog. I have been on this space for going on three years now, I have gotten comfortable with how this place feels, I have produced hundreds of pages of writing. I have lost and found myself and relived that rear-end accident that is my life again and again. I am not giving it up. If and when I bow out of this blogging thing someday it will be because I choose to, and not because I am driven out by honorary members of Narcissist and Co-Dependents Anonymous.

And the truth is, the name still holds true for me. I'm just an ordinary girl living in extraordinary circumstances. I'm someone that you could pass on the street and not notice, I am someone that just blends in with all of the other everyday strangers that cross our paths, walking in and out of our lives.

So I'm not leaving this site.

I am also continuing to not deal well. An email from my mother late last night set it all off again (naturally involving the words "the baby") and saw me crawling into the bathtub, complete with Lush bath bomb, wine candles, and insense (nothing wrong with imitating an opium den in the bathroom, right?) Angus had gone out to pick up one of his brothers from the airport, and when he came back we had one of those frank bathroom talks, him sitting on the toilet by the altar of lavendar joss sticks, me clinging to the side of the tub, hair wet, wine being downed.

I smelled like a candy bar.

I felt like shit.

I had to tell him I'm not doing well at all. In the past few days I have been prone to extreme acts of anger, I have been hit with hot flashes of rage that I haven't seen in years. Our toilet seat has always been a bit loose but since it's not our house, we only rent it, we don't care. I decided I was sick of doing the ass shuffle on the toilet seat to keep it from sliding one way or another, and so finally tightened the nuts on the damn thing. I haven't done a very good job, apparently, as the ass shuffle has to be more now in order to avoid the butt cheeks from touching the side of the toilet. I keep asking Angus to fix it, and I hope he does-I did the ass shuffle wrong on Saturday and very nearly ripped the seat off and beat the toilet with it, such was the wild burst of rage.

I had a go at our estate agent for being a dozy dickhead. The teenager at the supermarket faced my wrath when he was being an ass about the change. I am not myself right now, I am dealing with that pit of rage that I have pushed away, pushed down, pushed in for so long. I want to take an axe to a pile of wood, I want to kick down a fence with my bare feet, I want to throw the entire cupboard of drinking glasses to the pavement, I am so fucking angry I can't believe it.

In the end, I know I will do nothing but sock all the anger away like I always do.

What a week for my therapist to be away.

I continue to get that sucker-punched feeling. Putting socks away in my drawer-Bam! My sister's pregnant. Unloading the dishes-Whack! My family betrayed me. Making the bed-Wham! My whole world has changed. My mother's email another nail in the coffin and words in it have me feeling nervous about my father (if she's telling the truth, that is, and I never know who's telling me the truth and who's lying anymore. And, finally, I just don't care. I'm too tired to care.)

I am exhausted-all I want to do is go to bed and stay there. I find I am alternately clinging or unable to cling to my darling and lovely boy. I am pretty clearly depressed (although I am still bathing. But I am not using conditioner on my hair after I shampoo it! So there!) And through it all, I continue to cry easily. The Dog's Trust commercials get me every time, but the truth is they make me cry all the time anyway, that's why I give them money every month (in fact, I've decided to blow out this afternoon and drive to the nearest Dog's Trust in Newbury. We're proceeding with the house buying and I want to get to know the dogs beforehand, so we have loads of time to make sure we get the right dog and the right dog gets us. As Angus said-a trip to Dog's Trust could either depress me or cheer me up. Since I'm already depressed, what do I have to lose?). A Horizon documentary last night about Designer Babies had to be switched off, as a woman who'd gone through IVF for three years had me in bits. Living TV is to be avoided at all costs as they run "Twins and Triplets", "Mommies To Be", "Baby Wishes", and "Watch This-It'll Make Your Ovaries Bleed!" shows. It's all overwhelming.

So I am leaving on Thursday for a nice long weekend to go to visit her and her nice husband and their two nice dogs, and between the two of us we can devour a lot of nice alcohol and have lots of nice talks and go shopping, because that's what is needed here, I think.

In the meantime, I will quietly file away my feelings on this. It's hard, harder than I thought it would be, and at some point I'll be numb to it all only I'm just not there yet. It's all getting more and more compounded inside. On Friday night we rented Crash. It was amazing and heartbreaking and miserable and incredible. I cried three times during the movie and felt utterly defeated, realizing that it made me lose my faith in humanity.

Then I realized that part of what's wrong with me is I don't have any faith in humanity anyway, so I had nothing to lose to begin with.

-H.

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January 13, 2006

A Personal Go Away To Those Who Need To Go

I'd meant to be more upbeat today, after all I made it about ten hours with no tears. That's got to be worth something, right? Ten hours of no crying? I think that's something worth noting. I finally dried out.

But then I get an email this morning, one from my father. In the mail he indicates that the other family members bombarded him with phone messages about me. And what do they say? Why-you won't believe it! They say things that I wrote about ON MY BLOG.

Well I'll be goddammned. So even though said family members promised they would never read my blog again, it looks like someone has plum forgotten that promise, doesn't it? Or does it show that the promise was never intended to be kept anyway?

So all that time I believed you and thought-my blog is my private space, it's all anonymous, no one knows who we all are, well. Looks like I was wrong. So congratulations. You now know that I am planning on IVF, that work sucks, that I have a pink phone and that I'm off to New Zealand in 6 weeks. You know about my therapy, you know about my heartaches, heck-you even know when I'm getting my period.

In general, I have a rule about not blogging about family. I had to break my own rule and write about it after I hear the words "the baby" three times in as many minutes. I couldn't keep anything inside, it would have meant I would implode, I could have watched my organs go up in a conflagration. I don't hate the One Person-I just don't want anything to do with her right now. I imagine the feeling is mutual, to which I think...you know, I don't even know what I think. I guess, these days, I just really don't care (the division between sisters hurts you? Well, you shouldn't have called her your guarddog against me. Didn't help. Further, it winds me up that you called Dad and unloaded on him-that's out of order. Big time. My relationship with my Dad is no one's business but mine and his. I'm second, I've always been second, but let's let me have my one little moment of unrealistic happiness, m'kay?)

So I wrote about how awful I feel. But see, I thought you had kept your promise to not be here, so I could write my feelings about the One Person anyway.

I see I was wrong. Angus had actually not wanted me to write about the One Person, as he didn't want you guys to know how much it hurts me. Despite your misgivings about him, he actively wants us to work things out, to get close, to try to be a family again. He's not the bad guy. He never was-the truth is, there isn't a bad guy. We're all just people, people who need to know if there are limits and boundaries to how we can work together. Maybe this post will make things worse too, I don't know, I just don't know what else to do and I don't have reliable emotions to try to figure it out. I don't often vent about my life to you as I am-believe it or not-an extremely private person. That, and I know you have a lot on your plates, I don't want to add. I really don't. I figure I should just be in your lives as a support, which I can do, only I can't support the One Person, she's on her own (or no wait-she isn't. She has all of you, because as she reminded me last year I AM NO LONGER PART OF THE FAMILY.)

So congratulations. I thought it was impossible to feel worse than I already did, but the news from my Dad? Yeah. It's worse. The good news is my relationship with him isn't impacted at all (what, you're surprised that I thought it would be? Did you not realize what fucked up emotions I have inside, that the nature of my disorder means some of my emotions are frozen at childhood levels, unable to progress into adult comfort and "normal" levels without years of therapy? You didn't know that? Well, there you have it. I'm fucked up, but I guess you already read about that anyway.)

If we want to try to be a family, then stay off my site. I mean it. I would like us to have a relationship. I do hope things work out in the end. Right now it's not feeling positive on my end and, I imagine, on yours. I love you guys, but go away from here. I mean it-GO AWAY.

And my infertility site? Yeah, I'm not publishing the link for it on my site. If anyone wants access to it when it's up (which should be in the next week) then send me an email (it's the red link on my sidebar, under my picture that says: Write me an email!) and I'll send you the link.

If anyone needs me, I'm going to be curled up in the bathtub. I don't give a fuck. The ten hour subsidance of tears ended anyway.

-H.

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January 12, 2006

The 5 Stages of Grieving

There are 5 stages of grieving, or so say those bastards with shiny degrees from places I have never heard of. Since, you know, everyone's grief has a pattern, a form, it's all the same. Grief is generic, we can just fill out the form in the DMV. Name? Helen. Age? 31. Stage of grief? Denial.

5 Stages of Grieving:

1. Denial, shock and Isolation
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

I am clearly in Generic Grieving Category Stage 1: Denial, shock and isolation. That said, I do sample from the party tray of the other 4, with the exception of acceptance, 'cause one thing I am not good at is just accepting and moving on. But I have the bases covered on the generic 5 stages of grieving, which must mean that I am abnormal, because surely someone grieving can't feel them all in one go, right?

I don't really know what it is I am thinking and feeling right now. I can pass through the house, I light a few candles, I watch a bit of TV. I make dinner for us, I attend conference calls, and I walk down the Waterloo Bridge, I watch the twinkly blue fairy lights on the banks and wonder how it is they knew to use the color blue today, it should be blue, it must be blue. I don't feel a thing, nothing gets in or out save for the waterworks of tears and the continued Period Fairy flow. All I know is I don't want to talk about anything with anyone, I want to take long baths and play Sims and make my Nintendog Casper kick ass in the disc throwing competition.

My life goes on, even if my One Person's stomach is beginning to harden and protrude. At least my stomach is beginning to harden as well, but that's a form of exercise and eating right, there's nothing under the skin but muscle and blood cells. There's nothing in there. There's nothing in me at all.

It hits me about a hundred times a day, and I think I have cried about one hundred thousand tears. I stopped counting them right about number 23,498. I've cried a lot since then, so since I can't do calculus and the counting exhausts me I'm guessing it's right about the six figure mark.

I'm working from home today and have a load of conference calls, all of which I would like to bunk off of. I've been thinking of going to the movies today since I am sick of watching myself in my own movie, the disassociation blues have me so clearly outside myself I can't remember what my own toes feel like. I think I want to go see Brokeback Mountain, because what isn't cheerier than a gay unrequited love cowboy story? Nothing says "cheer my ass up" like some cowboy hats, baked beans, and KY loving, right?

And I've started to get angry. It's intermittent, but then I've always had problems with commitment.

I laid in bed last night and thought of the words my family member shouted at me on the phone over a year ago. "Oh yeah? Well your One Person still loves you and would give you a kidney if you needed one!"

And like a typical dumbass, I lay there last night thinking of all the comebacks I have to that one. You know, comebacks I thought of one year out. I punched the air repeatedly, thinking Yeah! THAT'S what I should have said!

Family member: Well your One Person still loves you and would give you a kidney if you needed one!

Me: Oh yeah? Giving me a kidney would imply that she had to care about me, and that's excercising a muscle she never uses!

Family member: Well your One Person still loves you and would give you a kidney if you needed one!

Me: Here's a hot tip-I'd give a stranger a kidney if it would help them, m'kay? So it's no heroic effort about the kidney, giving one up isn't a hallmark for caring. I don't have to care about someone to give them a kidney, they just have to be on a goddamn register!

Family member: Well your One Person still loves you and would give you a kidney if you needed one!

Me: I don't want her kidney! If she gave me her kidney it would just lay around on the couch and make my kidney do all the fucking work!

It's not really very helpful to think of comebacks one year on, but there you have it. I'm guess I'm less "Stage 2: Anger" and more "Stage 2: Raving Bitter Sarcastic Bitch".

I also leapfrogged Stages 1-3 and really headed into Stage 4: Depression. As in: I may need to be medicated. As in: Here are my favorite pajamas and there is my favorite bed now will the whole world please fuck off and let me alone? I have a date with a box of Man-Sized Kleenex (and why the hell are they called Man-Sized Kleenex anyway? What, only men get big kleenex? Women have to have wimpy pussy Kleenex that fall apart after two nose blows as we're allegedly so dainty? Listen up, Kleenex-when I sob I can blow holes in bedspreads. Snot comes out at 100 mph and my tears supply the Dead Sea. Don't waste my time and call them Man-Sized Kleenex and offend my feminist sensitivities. No go talk to that environment killer Kimberly Clark and come up with truly absorbant tampons and Kleenex that the Lost survivors can use as sails, ok?)

I'm not hungry. I don't want to wash my hair (but I do, so don't panic. I am freshly showered, thanks). I don't want to get out of bed, but I will. After all, I have to have a Chlamydia smear at the hospital next week, as that's the one STD test they forgot to do and nothing says "recover from depression" like a cold shiny speculum inserted between your thighs.

So I take from all the stages of grief. All of them.

Except acceptance.

I can't accept it.

I don't think I ever will.

And I still can't stop crying.

And I am worrying that it may involve a screaming poster and a house full of empty guest rooms.

Because I am already in Stage 3: Bargaining. Please God let me have a baby please God let me have a baby please God let me have a baby...

I am working on setting up the infertility blog.

-H.

PS-To all of you that left comments and sent emails-thank you. I read each and every one of them (as I always do), your own stories of pain, your own experiences, your own hurts. I can't tell you how comforting it is to know that I am not the only one with a One Person. We all have One Person. Here's to someday recovering from our Own Person, as maybe in the next life we get to kick their ass at arm wrestling or table tennis. It continues to be de-lurking week, so de-lurk if you want. If anyone needs me, I am in my pajamas wondering how I can pass the rest of my week, my month, my year, my life.

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January 11, 2006

The One Person

On Monday I went from London to where the IVF clinic we are using is. It was a quiet drive, taking less time than it usually does through the maze of roundabouts, and I made it there in about 20 minutes. Once there I walked through the long hallways, passing many elderly there for various treatments and ailments, passing the implanatation room with the many monitors and lights waiting for the next egg baby that comes along. I made my way up the stairs to the clinic and tried to register with the receptionist.

'Hi, I'm here for a blood test? I'm Helen A-' I started.

'Yes, right, please sit down,' snapped the receptionist.

The clinic is extremely popular, renown for its success rates, aided by the fact that there is a doctor and a nurse that work there who worked on the first successful IVF case in the world, Louise Brown, born in 1980. It is renown for its egg share programme, which has the highest success rate in the UK. It is not, however, known for its perfect bedside manner amongst the staff, but then I guess you can't have everything. After all, which would I rather have, scrambled eggs or a cuddle?

I wait in a mauve waiting room that is luckily stocked with all of the latest magazines, so I could amuse myself reading about Katie Holmes' pregnancy or stare into the glaring spotlight of Jordan's breasts. There were three other couples in the waiting room. One couple sat slightly apart from each other, flicking frantically through a Hello! magazine as though it had the answers to the problem they seek instead of just cheesy pictures of Rod Stewart. The second couple sat next to each other talking in murmuring tones, the sides of their mouths lifted, the tops of their heads angled towards one another. The third couple was young, and as they sat he held her hand by the thumb, his whole hand caressing and massaging the thumb as though all the comfort he had could be retained by that single digit.

I was alone, as it was simply a blood test and needles don't bother me. I looked at the walls of the clinic and the many hundreds of baby photos they have of successful baby births. There were many twins and triplets in these pictures, and in some of them the babies were held by smiling nurses, proof that the mothers had come back to say: Thank you. Look what we did together. There were notices for meetings and conferences on infertility. Support groups lined another wall-Mothers of Twins in Fleet, Single Mothers of Guildford, IVF Families of Woking. And there on the top of one wall, separated as though infected with leprosy, was a large poster for another support group-Are You Going To Spend Your Life Childless? it screamed in bright bold letters. Our Support Group Will Help You Learn How To Cope!

Great. That little injection of hope is all we need.

I was called by the nurse and we went into an exam room. I asked her what FSH measured and she explained the basics (Caltechgirl was correct, FSH is a measurement of the ovary function.) The nurse explained if I have a nice low level then my ovaries are functioning just fine. If I have a slightly elevated level then my ovaries will need extra help with the ovary stimulus drugs when I start IVF. If the number is really high, she explained, then my body is going into menopause.

Gah! I shriek. Menopause! What? Gah! Is this a worry?

No, she explained, cleaning off the space of my elbow to allow needle accommodation. That's just worst case scenario. I'm sure yours are fine. We'll have the results on Tuesday, and if you don't hear from us, then the results are just fine.

I didn't hear from them yesterday, so I guess I can rule "pre-menopausal" off my list of worries.

The nurse and I get a calendar out and start counting days. With my periods generally being shorter than the 28 days most women have, I face anywhere from 24-27 day cycles, the day it looks like I will be able to start the meds, depending on the period the beginning of March, is the 26th of March. We have an appointment a week after we come back from holiday to get the medication, set up the schedule, and start. And right now it looks like the suppressor nose spray will be for three weeks, the stims will be for two weeks and then egg removal happens. As the schedule looks right now, the eggs will be fertilized and re-implanted on April 20. Angus' birthday.

I go home and we talk about it all. I find out that someone I have just as high hopes for has a date change to meet with her IVF consultant, and that date is soon. I have a meeting with my therapist on Tuesday, whom I haven't seen since before Christmas. Once my head is shrunk, I head to Maidenhead for meetings. Once in there, it is all business with my team, the boys I love. We are talking and working through plans and I see I have a voice message. I listen to it.

And my head hasn't been the same since.

Here's the thing about trying to have a baby-it seems to never fail that everyone around you just has a drink of water and winds up pregnant. Like it's something that you don't even have to work for, it's something that happens. In England they don't call it 'getting pregnant', it's 'falling pregnant', like you're just walking down the street, trip over a crack in the sidewalk, and once you stand up and brush the grit off your hands whadda'-you-know, you're knocked up. I think it's honestly like that-the majority of my project team have had partners that tripped and fell down and stood up with a bun in the oven. It's a bit wearying getting all these people presents, and I know Marks & Spencer's onesies like nobody's business, as it has become my standard gift.

With other people going through fertility treatment, it's different. Should any of the women I know-and in the blogworld I can think of three of them-fall pregnant, it will be joyous. It will be bittersweet and a little painful and I'll be slightly jealous, but overall I will be fucking delighted for them and will send them baby shirts with the Union Jack on them just because.

And then maybe we all know One Person that if that person gets pregnant, it's going to be hard for us. Maybe that One Person symbolizes something, maybe that One Person is the One Person that it is impossible to be happy for. Call us selfish, call us bitches, I don't care. I just have to be honest. For every infertile woman I know there's someone they can't bear to see succeed. My neighbor Billie gets a look on her face of worry and fear when I tell her we have news-after so many attempts at IVF she has become one of that support group with the screaming letters, she is giving up. I think she worries that I will tell her I'm pregnant, and I worry about hurting her if it does happen for me. Maybe I'm her One Person.

We all have One Person. Maybe this person has always gotten everything they've ever wanted in life, and gotten it easily. Maybe this person doesn't realize what a fucking gift it is to have a child. Maybe this person was someone we competed with in high school. Maybe this person just doesn't deserve it in our minds. I don't know every woman's reasons for why they have problems with One Person, but every woman I have asked who is going through fertility treatment has a One Person, all for different reasons. None of these reasons may make sense to anyone else, and maybe we come across as selfish and bitchy but for once in my life I'm going to say yes-I am selfish in not being happy for this person, I admit it, but I am never selfish and I wish this moment wasn't here, but it is.

My One Person is pregnant.

I have known for some time that I won't be able to handle it if my One Person is pregnant.

I was right.

And with it, so comes the tumbling of the cards. Hot on the heels of the abject horror of my One Person came the fear that because of this, I will lose my father. I just got him. I only just got a relationship with him, and now he may dump me over the One Person. You might immediately think-well, then he's not a very good person and you're better off without him. It's not that easy. I've always wanted a father and I don't want to give him up.

And I can't go home now, not at all.

I had left the meeting when I heard the voicemail and walked into another empty meeting room. I gripped the table as I was punched repeatedly in the stomach and sobbed. Then I called Angus and sobbed harder. Then I tried to go back into the meeting, only one look at my face and the boys called a break, Peter and Robert guiding me into a meeting room to ask me what was going on. I broke down and told them, and included the fact that I was headed for IVF round number 3, that I had lost Egg and Bacon, that I had lost, I was lost. They hugged me and we talked and headed back into the room, my boys taking all the action points. I had finally broken down in front of some of my team, a rule I said I'd never violate, but the only other option would have been to walk out and drive home.

And at home, I cried. And cried. And even got those hiccup-sobs that I haven't had since I was a child. And I stared at the raised and bruising mark on my arm, the sign of my blood test, the only sign I have.

And today my face looks like it's been punched with tennis balls, my eyes red and puffy, and I watch the rain slide down the train window. Angus and I are working on it, even if he doesn't know why the One Person hurts so much and I'm not sure quite how to get the words out. Maybe it's impossible to explain if you don't have One Person. It hurts and it shouldn't and it makes me a bitch but I'm being honest, thus here it is. It hurts. It may make you hate me, think I'm a horrible person, that I'm a bitch, and maybe I am. I try not to be, but maybe this time? I hurt.

It just does hurt.

More than I know how to hurt.

-H.

PS-Apparently it's de-lurking week (meaning if you read and never comment, go ahead and leave a comment), so help a girl out and de-lurk. Angus and I often say at home that posts I write that end up with less than 15 comments must be Suck Posts. Please don't let today be a Suck Posts Day.

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January 09, 2006

The Process, or How About a Cookie?

We've been busy trying to book up accommodation and activities for our upcoming holiday. The Cook Islands, while have two islands rated as one of the top 10 most beautiful islands in the world, is apparently more of a 'honeymoon gazes and wine-soaked afternoons in a lagoon-side hammock' type of place than a 'let the kids throw spaghetti across the dining room' kind of place. Not that we are really into pasta flinging ourselves, but you get the drift. We have finally decided and booked a villa on the beach, a condo that has sliding doors flinging open to the sandy lagoon. It's the kind of place that we can leave our snorkels rinsing in the sink while we sit on the deck, eating with our fingers and talking about the day's activities.

I cannot wait. It sounds so completely fabulous, apart from the journey back (although we are stopping a few times on the way over, the way back has the following suicide inducing torture-a 6 hour drive, then a two hour flight, then a 12 hour flight, then another 12 hour flight. Moods will be high, and potentially not even video on demand will be able to pull us out of the blue.)

New Zealand is proving a bit trickier. We're going just as the New Zealand summer is ending, so accommodation is still at a premium. As we only have 7 days in New Zealand we've decided not to be brave and do a whistle stop tour-the north and south islands in 7 days! Never leave a car and forget what feeling in your legs was like! The truth is, I imagine you can live thereyou're your life and never see it all, so why try to do the whole thing in one week? Instead we are spending the entirety of the 7 days in one area on the South Island after we fly into Christchurch, as I think and hope we'll go back again someday.

New Zealand looks to be more family oriented, as though they expect and hope that you'll be there with a family of rumbly bumbly young '˜uns who flesh light and laughter into the place. And we will be there with two generally happy kids. The amazing thing is, the area we're heading into has more adventure than anywhere I've ever known.

One of the things we're thinking of doing (and which I am very, very keen to do) is to go swimming with the dolphins. They pack you in wetsuits and chuck you in the water with pods of dolphins that swim and dance and jump. The dolphins are often joined by sperm whales and killer whales. As these tours are eco-only, that means no touching or feeding them, you just swim along with them. Apparently, by all the counts I've read, they love swimming with the peoples, and the more your splash around they more they'll splash around. As I read up on it, I read the single item: The dolphins love pregnant women.

To which I think: Rub it in Flipper, and I'll re-think my pro-Albacore stance and push for you to be in the sashimi.

My period should hit right about the time I am donning my swimsuit in the Cook Islands. Naturally. But strangely, I am almost welcoming it (that said, I currently have the super extra plus stuffed up me as I type this, hoping to make it to London Waterloo before and leak through starts off and hopped up on enough ibuprofen to ward off the Dallas Cowboys' aches and pains.) I have another Period Fairy visit in about 25 days, then the Cook Islands Vampire Jamboree, and then I'm home.

Home, and hopefully reaching out to the other woman who is waiting in the same darkness as I am.

Home, and hopefully time to start the process, which is so serious it should really be The Process. I have to go to the IVF clinic this afternoon for some blood tests, the final in the rounds I have to go to as they need me to come in on day 2 of my period to test my FSH levels (I have no idea what FSH is. Something to do with hormones, babies, or pescetarians, I'm not sure. Either way, I've had the test before and it was just fine, the test results were only valid for 6 months and thus need re-doing). I also have to have an STD test that they forgot to do-I have no idea which one, but it does seem a bit torturous that they forgot one, seeing as I had the All-Ho Test Kit, the queen mother of STD tests they give to egg donors, one testing for STDs that I am pretty sure are old wives' tales (it was that jumping over the broom they made me do that convinced me).

Babies are a regular and heart-wrenching part of my thoughts. And it's not just me, Angus comments on it a lot-about the status of holidays next year (he's been thinking of infant-friendly places to go), how to manage Christmas, when to travel if pregnant, how to involve my family, etc. I keep thinking and hoping, hoping, hoping.

We won't be able to go through the process very many times. If it happens, it has to happen soon. I read about women that have gone through it 10, 12 times. I think I'd go mad well before my 10th try. The Process takes the whole world out of your hopes and soul and turns your heart into a ball of Play Doh. Ask any woman going through it all, and about the last thing we want to hear is 'You WILL be a mother, it is absolutely going to work!' It's called False Hope, and it hurts more than the Play Doh heart, because what happens if it's never meant to be?

I'll cross that bridge if and when I get there, and I have no doubt that if I have to cross it, it'll be the most rickety, difficult bridge I'll ever have been on in my life.

There should be a more gentle saying, one that doesn't imply hope while the purpose of it is to offer hope, encouragement and love. Something like, "Fancy a cup of tea?" or "How about a cookie?" Something benevolent like that.

In the meantime, I will swim with the dolphins who love pregnant women more than me, I will delight in the entire holiday, and I will wonder what's going to happen. I will avoid UK Lifetime TV (it's all babies all the time on that channel! Watch it for 30 seconds and you will find, to your amazement, that you will suddenly and incredibly be lactating as you swaddle the cat in the throw blanket over the back of the couch!) I will continue to take my pregnancy vitamins and my folic acid (if this works, the umbilical cord will be less of a cord and more of a titanium-structured rope the kid can bungee jump with someday).

And if we start after coming home from holiday, it will be a set number of days after my cycle. Once I made it to the office I idly counted up the days this morning on my Outlook calendar, and found that the number of days from my last period and the x days it will take before The Process can start would mean that if we started, I would start The Process on what is the English Mother's Day.

The irony is not lost on me.

-H.

PS-there are so many infertile bloggers out there, I am thinking of starting up an infertile bloggers website. I know we are scattered to the winds, I have seen long link pages all over the place, but what if we all had one place we could go to, a place where we could vent and cry and share info? Is anyone interested, or am I off my rocker? (By the way, you can email me, if you'd rather not let people know you're ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE, you know, like me, the INFERTILES. My email address is just below the picture of me on the sidebar).

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January 06, 2006

What I Remember

There are some days when I miss living in the States-the heat and light that came with living in Texas. The wet windy weather that Seattle brought on a near afternoon basis. The sea grasses over the sandy azaleas in North Carolina.

I know I chose to leave-I know I live my life in a little English village and am about to spend half a million pounds on a house that will keep me here for many, many years, with a man that I would go anywhere with. Even though I get teased about being an American (often good-naturedly), I don't apologize for being one and I have absolutely no plans to try to shake off my accent, to try to assimilate like Angus' stepmother, an Australian who is so absolutely British now that you'd never guess she came from Down Under. Being an American is something that I am, like I'm brunette, I'm a veggie, I'm a nut. I don't shout out about any of these things, I live life on the down low, but they are parts of me that I care about and love.

She recently had a post about the things she does and doesn't miss about Dallas. Dallas, city of big dreams and even bigger hair. Dallas, the one city that I knew every single road through downtown on, so I could dive off the Mixmaster and race down the one-way streets, travelling through West End, Deep Ellum, Lower Greenville. I would zip through the streets in my green VW Cabrio, the top down and the CD player blaring. For some reason, when I think of Dallas, I think of Collective Soul and Toad the Wet Sprocket playing at top volume and the streets shimmering with heat, the sky cloudless and baking, the streets empty and the sidewalks quiet in the world's calmest downtown.

We watch a show sometimes on TV called Sheer Dallas, which seems to embody all of the absurd and ridiculous that Dallas can be. Although we're not fans of realite TV, it can be nice to watch them drive past the Cowboys stadium, it's nice to see the roads I knew so well, it's nice to remember what it was like to be there.

When I think of Dallas, I seldom think of my time in university, that horrible high school, or the years in the little house with Kim on Lower Greenville. When I think of Dallas it is with memories of the first house I owned, a house from the 1920's in Oak Cliff that was all my own. It cost me what was, at the time, a king's ransom to purchase-I paid $68,000 for it, and it was perfect. It was clean, it was lovely, and it was all mine. I had two dogs, a Rottie-mix named Boscoe and a lab-mix named Toby. I had a spare room that held all my books and my hockey kit for the hockey games I played in once a week. I had my work and I had a huge comfortable bed that I would spend most of Sunday in reading the paper with my dogs and I had a green and yellow kitchen that I loved being in.

Over time Dallas has become embedded in me as the Land of Memories.

Sometimes, I do miss Dallas.

I think back and remember what it was like living outside of Seattle at Tacoma AFB. There's not much I remember, but I remember the house with the large windows in the front, the front garden filled with my mother's roses. I had a pink bedroom and a Miss Piggy poster on the wall. I remember the time I took my Kiss Me Barbie's kissing lipstick and stuck it all over me, trying to convince my mother I had the chicken pox, which she didn't fall for as the marks were all lip shaped. Summers were purple popsicles melting down my arm, blueberries, and running around barefoot on warm grass, a clothesline spinning above me and clouds spending endless time drifting around, waiting for me to guess what shape they were in.

I remember not being a little girl anymore there.

Sometimes, I do miss Seattle.

I remember living in Raleigh, North Carolina. Trips to the Outer Banks with views over bridges that are impossible to describe, and even harder to imagine. North Carolina had quiet country roads and perfect bagels. I remember spending long Sundays with my best friend Jim, eating bagels and watching movies and pretending the world wasn't important. I remember sand at the side of the road, drives to bed and breakfasts in Wilmington. In North Carolina came working myself to death and many, many hours at the Raleigh-Durham airport as I got ready to go to Sweden, England, Singapore, France. I remember the bags under my eyes so deep the North Carolina sun couldn't get them out, I remember standing on a coffee table and screaming in joy as the Stars won the Stanley Cup, I remember one day later learning my grandpa was on his death bed.

There was overdosing. North Caolina had me sitting in bed, holding the phone in stunned silence as I learnt Kim was dying. There were rivers of tears. I spent hours going up and down, battling the mania and the depression, cleaning all night long and being unable to leave the house. I remember the feel of the North Carolina sun on my shoulders-different from Dallas, but no less loving.

I remember North Carolina in insanity-steeped memories.

Sometimes, I do miss North Carolina.

I do think about Sweden a lot as well. Sweden was my next stop in the world after North Carolina. I remember sparkling blue water and spiralling copper-topped buildings. There was love, fear, the smell of hospital straps and a happy Collie. Stockholm hasn't begun to register in the memories, I'm still really only on my Dallas years, but in time the memories will begin to fit into my past, and I suspect when these memories finally come they'll smell like gingerbread.

I have lived all over the States but the only places that stay with me are North Carolina, Texas, and Washington. Even though I left them, over time they've become a part of who I am. I can slide back into a slight Southern drawl without thinking about it (much to the amusement of Angus' kids). I can remember what it was like the day Mt. St. Helens exploded (we watched a lot of TV, had no school that day, and it was pretty damn dark), I know what the smell of plywood over boarded North Carolina hurricane windows smells like, and I can remember the purple-green sky of an impending Texas tornado.

To make life simpler I have sometimes been guilty of trying to play down where I'm from and where I've been. But all of these are a part of me, and the thing about these memories is even though some of the memories as so painful I could scream in agony, most of them are precious and dear, sights and smells and colors, patchwork pieces of places that has made me who I am today, and things I will remember until I die.

Here's to you, America.

And thank you.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 12:35 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
Post contains 1222 words, total size 7 kb.

January 05, 2006

It's Real, and If I Can Just Get Some Toast I'll Tell You About It

As I sit here drinking coffee and battling a major headache, I realize it's that time again. Although I think I can get by it every month, I think I can escape the onslaught, the despair, the pain, I never do. It's as though I am beating my head against the wall, realizing with fruitless horror that I can't escape this, no matter what I do. I want to bury my head in my hands and cry, I want someone to help me fight my invisible demons, but I am alone in this.

But I cannot fight this alone anymore.

It's time to face and accept it.

I have PMS.

Men seem to pooh pooh the idea of pre-menstrual syndrome, or PMS (strategically called PMT here in England, which means "pre-menstrual tension". We're not tense! We're fucking overloaded with progesterone! There's no tension here, it's purely chemical, and not in the space cake kind of way. Calling PMS by any other name is a mistake. Women! We must stick together! We must unite in our acronyms, don't give them a reason to divide us!) but I am here to say-it is real.

No, seriously. It is real.

PMS didn't use to affect me. When I was in my teens and early twenties (when the blood output of a period was equivalent to a sneeze), I was hapy-go-lucky as PMS passed me by. Now that the blood flow is equivalent to a fireman's hose, PMS takes me and bitchslaps me once a month. And that bitchslapping hurts. They say that PMS largely affects women in their twenties and thirties, so good news! 9 more years of this for me!

It's bad enough that the Period Fairy has to come at all (are you here again? Didn't I just see you 24 days ago? Didn't you stay for 5 days? And I'm not even going to mention that khaki skirt episode either!). I have to have PMS as well. Amazingly, the Period Fairy is the good part, the relief after the PMS. I could laugh and dance for joy when the period arrives as it brings with it my sanity, only I'm too busy stuffing a bichon frise up my hoo hoo and downing extra strength ibuprofen.

Now men. Sit down. Listen. This is the most important thing you can take away from this-We are not making PMS up. It is not a figment of our imagination, it is not us trying to sneak a cranky mood by you. We don't enjoy having a four day hall pass to take apart your dignity bit by bit. This isn't fun for us either.

First off, many of us have the Breast Swelling. Now while this may fulfill any juvenile fantasties men may have that suddenly we'll turn up in a French maid's outfit with Anna Nicole's rack and Pamela Anderson's desire to drop to our knees to please you, I'll have to set the record straight. We have the Breast Swelling, but they swell up with rocks, not soft Play-Doh like silicone. Our breasts are more suited for geologists and the Seven Dwarves mining operation than your hands playing Radio Tokyo on them. We feel these rocks with every move we make, as though the pointy flint edges are just aching to pop out of our mammaries. Touch the breasts and you may die.

Next up, acne. Now, my teenage years were fraught with taunts and horrors but one thing I escaped was the bad skin. I have never had a problem with zits, ever...until PMS! Then, suddenly, I am back to longing for Rebecca Grayheart's skin on the Clearasil commercials. I am nearly 32 years old but once a month I get at least two quite visible pimples, pimples that not even my Lancome Spackle can cover up. Do I want to pop those bad boys? Do I ever. Have they sunken down all the way to the muscle in my face when it's PMS time? Do I have to answer that?

Then we move on to mood swings. Do I love you? Yes. Do I hate you? Probably. Do I hate absolutely everyone and everything everywhere ever? Yes. Do I cry at dog food commercials? You betcha. Do I love you more than anything in the whole world ever for Christ's sake stop asking me so many questions I don't know the answer to and I never want to live without you, complete with singing birds and fairies and don't even ask me where the remote is I hate the whole world and I have a voodoo doll to prove it forever and ever? Yeah. D, all of the above.

It's honestly that bad.

That's not even including the headaches we get, the screwed up sleep patterns, the constipation so severe that Stalin would have approved of it, and the food cravings. Oh, the food cravings! I become a carbohydrate addict. I want toast, covered with cereal, a baked potato, and pasta. With cheese, of course. And once I escape the carbo phase, I head straight into salt territory, which is a strange part of the month as I hate salt, I never use the stuff. I want my toast cereal potato pasta cheese concoction covered with extra salty popcorn. I can't stand it.

But the worst part of PMS has to be the bloating. It's as though our bodies are mocking us that we aren't pregnant, so it swells us up enough to be so. The fat clothes get pulled out the days before the period, the extra space in the waistband, the beach ball like protrusion getting covered up. You could take a saftey pin and try to pop us, but all that would come out would be a river of progesterone and some partially digested toast. This is the K-Mart nylon knickers time of the month, when you need coverage that Gilligan could have used as a replacement sail for the Minnow.

According to this site, there are over 150 symptoms of PMS, and at any given time I guess most of us will have about 149 of them.

They say that there are herbal remedies to PMS. That you can take Primrose Oil, drink chasteberry tea, and up your calcium dosage. Well, I'm here to tell you-they're all a bunch of hippie love child liars. I have eaten whole gardens of primroses, I have drank so much tea I'm an honorary Englishwoman, did it help? Do I look like a happy camper? I don't want to even hear about herbal remedies anymore, the only thing I want to help cure the PMS is something that I have to get a prescription for, and something that when I go to pick up the prescription I have to show ID for and sign national drug safety documents.

PMS is real. Ask any woman. If I committed a murder while having PMS, the only trial jury of my peers would be a cast of 12 women with rock-hard PMS breasts. And of course they would let me off right away, not only would all I have to say is "I had PMS" with a shrug, but once I said that they'd start shouting at the judge to stop wasting their goddamn time, the hard chairs are uncomfortable on their bloated butts, of course I'm not guilty, and does the judge know where they can get any toast?

You don't like us during PMS time? Well, we don't like us either. For myself, I'd trade places with a man during that time anyday, and even allow myself to get racked in the balls by a ballerina wearing toe shoes once a day while the guy suffers my PMS, purely out of gratitude.

Now if you'll excuse me, I just saw a car insurance commercial that's made me all weepy and I have to go buy bread.

Lots of it.

-H.

PS-I have added blogads to my site, so if anyone wants to advertise, just click the link of the left and have at it!

PPS-The flickr experiment is ongoing and I am still trying to get the hang of it, but it's still on the left sidebar.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:16 AM | Comments (27) | Add Comment
Post contains 1396 words, total size 7 kb.

January 04, 2006

Resolve Isn't Just a Stain Remover

So they say that we should all have resolutions to start the new year. The clock chimes midnight, and suddenly everyone has a sparkle in their optimistic eye. This is why I have to book up all my yoga classes through the end of June 2007 now, as suddenly it will be packed with people wearing new shiny yoga togs and with a gleam in their eye-It is 2006! I will go to yoga and be all bendy and soon be the size of Cindy Crawford after she lost all that baby weight!

But once they figure out that yoga isn't the weight loss dream that the stars purport it to be (I do yoga four times a week with an instructor, says the star with dreamy eyes. This is how I am a size 2, and that's only if I'm soaking wet! Teeheeheehee! Like hell you are, babe. Yoga is great but it's a toner, not a weight loss vehicle unless you're doing bikram yoga. And we all know bikram yoga will make you sweat and lose those little hair extensions of yours. So go ahead and tell the truth-you live on a can of Del Monte Niblet Corn every day, up until the days you binge on 12 packets of Mallomars and throw your guts up. Do not lie to me! I know that game you play!) they'll quit. Gonzo. And their yoga togs will sit in the bottom of a drawer whimpering miserably as they fail to complete their yoga pant destiny, which is to encase the ass of someone doing Warrior II.

I don't do resolutions. I figure, why set myself up to fail? If I suck so much at something, why do I have to wait until the 1st of January to try to address it? Nah. Resolutions are not for me.

That said, we did both start our diets yesterday, not as a resolution but because we simply could not bear depriving ourselves of good eat during the holidays. So we are counting calories, eating healthier, and working to slim down. We are also on a white week, which might explain why we are both so cranky.

Resolutions are a pain. It's like living with rules that someone enforced on you, only they enforce them on you the first day of the year so you will therefore associate the next 12 months with extreme suckage. Isn't life too short for that? Shouldn't we throw this tradition to the birds, and start our pilgrimages of better lifestyles on, say, Arbor Day? Why celebrate only trees, we can also stop smoking/drinking/eating/living/masturbating on that same day!

That said, the First did see me thinking about what to do when I grow up. I did get an email about getting qualified to be a yoga teacher and I have been thinking heavily about it. I would like to teach yoga, only the problem is I would have to get used to eating once a day, as that's all I'll be ablt to afford, and I'll have to put up with people in their new yoga kit for approximately two classes the start of each year. Plus I'll have to put up with the stereotype that I'm a fan of granola and tie-dye and that I walk around wearing too many crystals and talking about my past life transgressions.

Sorry, but tie-dye is so scarily ugly it gives me hives.

But I have been thinking. What got me thinking is that ultimately I hate my job so much I have to leave, I WANT to leave. The one thing I can think of jumping onto, besides being a librarian (but that requires schooling) is writing. And this guy helped deliver the kick in the pants.

So I've started. I know I have been saying this, but this time? I mean it.

This time, I am organized.

My hard drive is littered with things I have stopped and started, ranging anywhere from 30-90 pages long, from as far back as 1998 to last year. This time I have been thinking before putting fingerpad to keyboard, and I have also bought a large notebook to help me map out the ideas. Angus' brother is in the Phillipines and has offered to buy me a version of Mindmap. I have a mini recorder to help if I have an idea. I am going to get organized to try to do this, and although it's not my resolution (I do not resolve! I will not resolve!) it is at least a direction. Maybe I wind up sucking it up and working in telecom my whole life, but if I don't try, I'll be the failure I always knew I was. Maybe a pleasant surprise is what I need.

-H.

PS-Statia got my Flickr working on the sidebar. I will try to post a new pic each day, access permitting, so go ahead and check it out and mock my pathetic attempts with a camera (I am a quantity girl when it comes to taking photos) and comment away.

PPS-Many, many thanks to my anonymous benefactor for my lovely gift. There's a lot of TV watching to be doing in this household now!

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:21 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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January 03, 2006

We're All Going On A Summer Holiday

I love to travel. With the exception of the motor marathons I used to take as a kid, where we would drive between one grandparents' and anothers' between Christmas and New Year, often with me squished between two seats playing with Colorforms and wondering when I could have the feeling back in my lower extremeties, I have loved travel for a long time. Travelling from Seattle to Des Moines with no overnight stop? Yeah. Long fucking drive.

As far back as I can remember, I have wanted to get the hell out of dodge (if dodge=Texas, and x=y, then x=strong desire to flee the Lone Star State laughing and giving the finger as I crossed the state line). And it was a big dream, something that consumed my thoughts and desires (and my bedroom walls, actually, as I was such a dork that I bypassed Duran Duran, New Kids on the Block, and Will Smith, substituting realistic teenage canvases with such pictoral orgasms as Brandenburg Gate, Norwegian Fjords, and the French Provence poster that is proudly displayed at every La Madeleine I've ever been inside). Maybe it comes from moving around so much as a kid, maybe it's because my father travelled to the far-flung parts of the world when I was a kid, travelling as he was on TDY so much, I don't know. All I know is that's all I have ever wanted, ever.

It started early, this travel bug. I may travel a fair amount now, but it hasn't always been like that, I was a one trip a year girl for many years. My first trip ever, to Paris, was done on a budget that didn't even qualify to be called "shoestring". It involved stealing croissants and applesauce from the hotel's breakfast buffet to suffice as lunch and dinner (the backpack I carried around Paris had to be trashed when I got home, it had so many croissant oil marks it was translucent in places). My trip was paid for by borrowed money, and while I was there I lived like a pauper.

I had a fantastic time. I was 20 years old and the bug had bitten me.

I came back and arranged for my employer (all three of them, thank you University of Texas) to take extra income tax from my paycheck, so that when the income tax refund came in it would be in one chunk of dough to pay for a vacation during Spring Break. I lived paycheck to paycheck, finding out how long checks took to reach creditors and clear, the cheapest places to buy gas, and I could float a check like it was made out of dandelion seeds. I think I am the one who single-handedly brought down the Arby's 5-for-5 deal to 3-for-5, cause I would buy 5 of those bad boys and have them last me a week, to hell with green-edged roast beef! So when that income check came in, there was only one thing to do with it-every penny of it went to a vacation.

And thus would ensue me spending many hours on the phone, the yellow pages spread open before me and amounts written on every page (Dear Baby Jesus-thank you for the internet. It has made travelling so much easier. I hate SWB yellow pages. Thank you and have a nice day.) I would wrench every cent from that income tax refund so that it could get me where I wanted to go, and it worked-everytime I came back with just enough money to buy a Happy Meal, but dammit I did it.

I got lots of weird looks. Once an employer wrinkled her nose and said what did I want to go to travel for, when I could buy an above ground pool? So wouldn't red chlorine eyes be way more preferable than seeing the Colosseum? Isn't it better to fend off all neighbors in a 3 mile radius and burn up the water bill in a drought-ridden Texas than get on an airplane and escape the heat? People thought I was mental to exhaust myself-and my income-on one lousy trip a year.

But it was what I wanted.

It is still something that excites and motivates me no end. It's been asked here on the site (and by some of my family members) that why am I travelling so much, what am I running away from? I don't see it like that. I don't escape anything when I travel, I'm still me when I go away, me with all the glorious problems that I already contain. But when I go somewhere new, I get to see things I never dreamed of. I get to talk to people, and walk on roads, and light candles in churches, and swim in waters so crystal blue I could never possibly have done them justice in my imagination. To me, life is too short to not see what else is out there. Maybe someday I will be in one place only, and I will need those memories of what it was like ot be somewhere else to make me smile.

You never know.

Travelling is easier now. I don't have to scrimp and save all year, while at the same time I know I won't be having an extended visit in the Waldorf any time soon. We both put money away each month in what we call our travel fund, and that fund gets raided once a year. And all of those years of working so hard for holidays has given me one massive benefit-

I can find a travel bargain.

I can spend days planning it, just to get the best deal I can. And Angus is also a master at massaging the internet to get us good deals. It's all about trying to be creative and putting up with a bit of inconvenience to do so.

We've been spending the last of our most precious holiday weekends getting ready for our next holiday coming up in February (well, he spent one day on it while I was laid up with a bad back, then I spent one day on it while he helped his mate hang a satellite dish. Tag team effort really.) This is one of two big holidays a year we want, as this one is the one that his kids have a week off of school and so we keep them out for another week to get more bang for their holiday buck. Research was tense.

"Look at this Helen!" He would shout excitedly while surfing the web on the laptop. "We can get an extra day in Kyoto if we're willing to stay in Lansing, Michigan for twelve hours!"

"Not bad," I say considering. "But what about this one I just found? We can go to Jamaica for £499 a person, if we leave before the full eclipse but not before the ice dancing in the winter Olympics."

"The finals?"

"It says here in terms and conditions 'Semi-finals'."

"Well that's ok then. Let's short-list it."

We surf some more. "Helen! I've found it! It's perfect!" Angus says with breathless wonder. "We can go hiking to Machu Pichu on camels and drink dodgy ciprhianis if we're willing to do an overnighter outside of Phoenix, Arizona!"

"Is that staying in an airport Ramada?"

"No, it says we'd be staying in local traditional dwellings."

"Abort! Abort!" I scream. "That means adobe huts, and we are going with two Swedish children that haven't seen the sun since early 2005! It'll be like sleeping in a kiln, when we wake up we'll have two kids we can use as cremation urns or an attractive fruit bowl!"

Angus pales and nods.

In the end, we manage to work that internet over like an Atkins dieter falling off the wagon with the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Last night, we clicked "confirm", much to the sweat and stress of the two of us, and we now have a holiday booked. We haven't sorted out all the hotels yet, but I am researching through this week to do so. We've pushed the boat out on this holiday and will be gone for 15 days (although two of those days are lost with us fucking around the International Dateline. I told Angus last night that he would have to explain the International Dateline to his young son as he might not understand it, and he shrugged and said he would but that his son already understood it. To which I wanted to secretly whisper: OK, actually, I wanted you to explain it to ME as I don't understand it. Oh well.)

We leave the end of February for the Cook Islands (in the South Pacific, which narrowly won out over Tahiti and Moorea) and New Zealand.

Yessssss.

-H.


PS-am trying to build a Flickr photoalbum that will run in the sidebar on my blog. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know as I may kill people soon, or at the very least, walk away from Flickr.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:19 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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