June 30, 2006
1) Lift a keg of Harvey's on top of a stool.
2) Manage to spend half an hour producing poop in the bathroom, during which I will have read half of the latest edition of the Screw-Fix catalog and sorted out the new ratchet wrenches I need.
3) Get myself completely lost and whiz around puke-inducing back country roads with a wave of the hand and the comment "What's the rush, babe?"
4) Find Ali G's alternate Borat funny.
And 5-this is key here-I really suck at barbecueing.
Not only that, but I am not remotely interested in barbecueing. The only fun element I can see in this is lighting a fire, and why not set up a bunch of tea lights instead? Let's see-open package of bright red dead animal. Insert marinade on dead animal. Open grill and find remnants of last dead animal grilled, which need to be scraped or else cause weird icky germy disease. Light fire. Spend ages nursing beer and fucking around with fire. Place dead animal on metal cage over fire. Ponce around trying to get dead animal sufficiently cooked. Serve, ridge of carbon dating on side optional.
Right. Wheeeeeeee. How fun.
So I totally allow the men-folk to do the barbecueing.
I don't even enjoy buying the dead animal (and it is a weird thing doing so, as I'm a veggie.)
I went to Waitrose on Thursday evening to start off the barbecue process. As we have over 30 people coming, I knew this would be the first jaunt of many. I loaded up with the basics of round 1. In the cart went most of the veggies before I walked my ass to the meat counter.
Behind the counter was a woman wearing every color of the L'Oreal Starter Eye Shadow Kit. I stared at her.
"Can I help?" she asks, unsmiling.
I look behind her, in case a My Little Pony is prancing around back there before it hits the butcher's block.
"I need pork spare ribs," I say hesitantly. She blinks and I am temporarily blinded by the light off her Rainbow Brite lids.
"How many?"
"Ummm...." I hesitate. This is where I show my true dead animal ignorance. "I dunno?" I ask. I am trying to figure out how she blended turquoise and pink eyeshadow so seamlessly.
"How many people?"
"Ummm....20 adults?" I wager not all of them are rip-the-gristle-from-the-bone kind of people.
"That's a lot of ribs." she says, unblinking.
"No shit." I reply.
That makes her blink.
"We're not going to have that many ribs," she says assuredly.
"What, in the shop or, like, ever?" I reply.
"Before the weekend. All we have is these," and she plunks down some already barbecued baby back ribs the size of the Baby Jesus.
"Jesus," I say in recognition.
I don't really like that they're already barbecued. I distrust this. I have no idea what the English notion of barbecue is, but I am sure it won't align with my Texas thinking. Although, really, I am perhaps being pretentious-the truth is, I really hate barbecue sauce. I purchase two packages of these huge bastards and a package of pork spare ribs. I load up on two huge packages of minced beef for the burgers as well.
People are staring at my cart. It is overloaded with the Atkins Wet Dream.
When I check out, it gets worse. The old biddy behind me is terribly sweet but terribly nosy. She looks at the 6 pounds of potatoes that I lay on the cart. She looks at me.
"I'm worried that Y2K is secretly delayed, and it's really coming now," I say by way of explanation. "I'm preparing to bunker down."
Her eyebrows raise. She watches the 24 ears of sweet corn make their way down the belt.
"Yeah, bunker down. Me and my rabbit."
She stares at me. Then she sees the entire virtual pig that I load up on the cart.
"The rabbit, his existence is expendable," I say meekly. "Until then, I've got Some Pig."
She sniffs and turns. I have purchased Round 1 of the Great 4th of July Feast, 2006. I'll need it-turns out the England/Portugal semi-finals are on at the same time, and that means hungry people. Luckily, I'll do most of the sides (and Angus and I are having a brownie bake-off as he has the nerve to suggest his brownies are better than mine) and my dear boy will get to barbecue while nursing pints of his favorite bitter. Because Angus? He loves to barbecue.
Maybe we all get to be our own perfect idol when we do things that feel like it should be second nature to us. Men barbecue and get to feel like the Real Man, the Real Man who does Real Man things, maybe like rescue women from wildcats on the mountain side and ejaculate on expensive 4x4s. Real Man can be on the starting line-up for England on Saturday, and in doing so will be able to use Posh Beckham as a railroad tie to get to a Scarlett Johnasson/Angelina Jolie threesome planned in the window of Harrod's.
I don't mind. In my Real Woman world, after all, I have calves of steel and bed hair and I run around in fishnets and stilettos shouting in a gravelly voice "Who runs Bartertown? I RUN BARTERTOWN!"
-H.
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? Have a fabulous barbeque anyway, around here dinner is planned, and an angry Irishman is cooking. Just because of that I hope England looses. Just because of that, of course 
Have a good weekend!June 29, 2006
Some say love is what you need in order to give someone a kidney.
Some say that love is that moment where you know you want to be with someone forever.
Hallmark would have you believe that love is a folded A4 piece of card paper with words along the line of "Yo-you de one, baby" (albeit more poetically said.)
I personally have no real definition of love, but for me it is something that I can point to. Love is, for instance, the reason I am late posting today. Love is my ass in the shape of an Alfa Romeo seat. I got to spend 5 hours in the car driving to Lewes, listening to Sarah McLachlan's "Rarities and B-Sides" and singing at the top of my lungs. Lewes is a hell of a drive from us, it's all the way down the end of Sussex (I bunked off work today-I just couldn't face it). Why did I go to Lewes? Because Harvey's Brewery is there.
And why is Harvey's Brewery a measure of love, you might ask (here's me being a cow again)?
Because my Angus is a Sussex Boy, born and bred. Because my Angus and his entire Sussex family are celebrating Independence Day with me on Saturday. Because you can't buy this beer anywhere but in the south end of Sussex. Because our 150 bottles of wine and 62 bottles of beer we bought in France last week don't matter, because I bought a keg of Harvey's and a crate of their beer for Saturday.
And I did this because Angus' favorite beer in the whole wide world is Harvey's. I wanted to surprise him, so I drove down to Lewes by myself (he is at a conference today) to reward him with a keg of his and his family and friends' most favorite beer.
I did it because all of these years on, he still looks at me with a sparkle in his eye.
That's love to me. That sparkle. That sparkle is what love is.
Well that, and beer of course.
-H.
(The keg is to go on that stool but I simply can't lift the fucking thing. Where's Wonder Woman when you need her?)
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June 28, 2006
Slowly, I am losing the ability to control my defences, my marvelous adept defences, the ones that have seen me through life and would have hastened my death. It wasn't a conscious decision, it wasn't something I asked for or wanted, it just happened. I realized it the other day when I was as miserable as ham on toast and just couldn't find a way to stop being miserable.
I used to have a vicious and violent temper-it was rare that I would explode but put me on a slow boil long enough and the explosion would indeed come. It was also a pattern I witnessed as a kid-anger took the form of airborne products. Telephones, lamps, things within reaching distance learnt how it felt to fly. I followed that path as an adult and while I never hurt anyone physically or directed anything at them, I was like a warm can of Coke that took a tumble in a vending machine-tap me too hard and I exploded all over the bearer of bad coins. It wasn't Hell Hath No Fury Like a Helen Scorned, it was simply Hell Hath No Fury Like Helen. When I lost it I lost it well and good-dishes would fly, glasses would break, items would lose their sense of gravity.
Yes, I know it was unproductive.
It didn't mean I could stop it.
Weirdly, my anger dried up and disappeared a few years ago. After a spectacular plate-smashing session during a bust-up with my ex, I tempered my anger. It dried up, a hollow hole where the well used to be. There was nothing in there. I simply wasn't angry.
Even when I should've been.
Talking with my therapist on Monday taught me more than I have learnt in a single session so far. Throughout my life anger has been a weapon, one used both against me and by me. Anger was a means of lobbing fireballs at someone, of spreading the pain. Anger was a form of manipulation against me, it was a way to make me twist and squirm, it was something I couldn't escape from, and in not escaping, learnt how to mis-use it myself.
Until now.
I just don't really get angry anymore.
My man, he thinks it's an excellent form of repressing. Sitting across from him he tells me things I have never heard before and, in hearing them, they make sense. Anger is not a tool to get someone. Anger should not be a method of torture. Anger shouldn't be something that rips your heart out, throws it across the room and watches it hit the wall and slide down, leaving a bloody trail behind. Anger should happen when someone crosses a boundary. You let them know they've crossed it, and if they don't get it then anger is the resulting reaction. Anger is not about flying items. It's not about destruction and punishment. Anger is not something that should rip a person in half, a pustulent split down the middle. Anger's a protection mechanism, something that protects us when we feel infringed upon.
Is this how life is supposed to be?
I ask him. He confirms that when he feels a boundary has been crossed, he tells the person. If they do not listen, then he may shout. Once they listen and stop treading on his toes his anger dissipates.
Is that normal?
And he tells me further that this is how the majority of people work. There are some people that work on extremes, that they have such tight boundaries that they spend their time paranoid, defending themselves against intruders, real or imagined. On the other side of the spectrum are people that have no boundaries, that get tread on again and again and are laid to waste as they don't fight back.
"And that," he says, "is where you are, Helen."
I am startled. "What do you mean? I have boundaries."
"Do you? When's the last time you were angry?" he replied.
I think about it. I can't recall the last time I was actually angry at someone. But I have been cracking, and trickles of fury come out. That morning I was running late for the train, and the station masters were being dicks about ticket checking. The queue was 20 people deep, the train arrived in two minutes, and so I went to the ticket machine. The machine, it turns out, would go all the way through the process of selling me a ticket up until the money exchange, wherein it turned out it wouldn't accept notes.
Already someone who stresses badly about trains, I went mental. I went into a white-hot blind fury and, without realizing it, started kicking the machine and screaming at it. I didn't plan on doing so, I had no idea what made me do it, but I truly assaulted Network Rail's machine.
When I got on the train I realized my foot was wet. Looking down I saw I was bleeding all over my flats and the carpets-in kicking the machine I had ripped off half of my big toenail and I hadn't even felt it. Throughout my train ride into London, I stare at my toe and wonder what the hell is going on with me. I buy bandages at Waterloo, where I wipe up the blood and tape up the toe in the Ladies Room, strange looks and pointed fingers from others around me.
I show him my toe and tell him this. I tell him I don't understand what happened. I tell him I haven't flipped like that in years.
"I think your defense mechanism is slowly starting to slip. When's the last time you stepped out of yourself?" he asks.
"Yesterday," I reply. "I walked right out of me yesterday." I remember it, too. I was feeling incredibly stressed about Melissa's birthday event. I was tired. I had a headache. I had been feeling like I was under a cloud and just couldn't get out of it. A run-in with Angus and a nasty comment he'd made was enough to seperate me, the real me eating popcorn in the doorway, the other me going about my routines like a robot.
"Why did you do that?" he asked. I explain it to him. "And you don't think you should've gotten angry?" he asks, his eyebrows raised.
My life moves by me like the view from a train window. "No, there's nothing to get angry about."
"What should you have done?" he prods.
"Nothing, there was nothing to do. I handled it fine."
"Stepping outside of yourself is a defense mechanism to take you away from the situation."
"I know, but it would've just turned bad should I have said something," I reply. Confrontation is bad. Very bad.
"A boundary was crossed, Helen," he says leaning forward. "Should you have said anything?"
"No! Anything I could have said would've caused problems." I state. I feel something slipping inside of me.
"But if you could have said something with impunity, what would it have been?" he asks, very gently.
The white hot heat hit me, much like it had at the train station. "YOU MISERABLE FUCKING BASTARD, DON'T YOU EVER SPEAK TO ME LIKE THAT AGAIN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" I scream.
I clap a hand over my mouth, shocked. "I'm so sorry. I would never have actually used words like that. And I wasn't yelling at you," I say quietly.
"I know," he smiles. "You have been repressing too much. It wouldn't have come out that way, but you can't keep bottling it up inside. Anger sometimes has consequences, but you have to figure out if getting some of your boundaries back means accepting that there may be consequences. You have to get your boundaries back and, while it may be tough, ultimately people may respect you for standing up for yourself. You have to try to stay anchored in the real and address when someone has crossed a line. It's not easy and it's not going to happen tomorrow, but we can work on this."
Angus and I talk this over later, and he agrees to work with me on it, too.
Much later I think about Gorby. A trembling, scared puppy when he arrived, we have worked hard with him. One of the things I've done is to run at him with my arms in the air. The first few times I did this he cowered, until once I reached him I pet him and scratched his stomach and played with him. He now knows that when I run at him with my hands up it's a good thing. Gorby is no longer afraid of hands being raised at him, it sets his tail wagging and his tongue lolling. Through work he's learnt that anger comes in stern words, not in flying fists.
And with a broken toenail and an understanding of what anger should be, I feel I am in the same boat.
-H.
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June 27, 2006
We have hot pink ones.
Not so pink ones-
And red ones that are so violent in color that both of our cameras nearly explode at being so close to it.
Of course, my peonies are also taking off.
Combine it with my recent acquisition and it makes for the world's most comfortable setting.
Angus moaned about my purchase, but it turns out he's become a fan, too.
Just try asking him if he wouldn't mind getting out of the hammock and being productive.
For the past two weeks, Angus' daughter Melissa has been here on her own, as her little brother is at camp. It's been strange having her here, in that while she was here her 14th birthday came and went. This, for me, is three times the stakes.
Their visits are always a combination of fun and exhaustion, cheer and exasperation. I used to think that being a workaholic was the hardest thing ever. I thought relationships were the greatest amount of effort. I believed that trying to cope with myself in my own head was the true challenge. The truth is somewhere in between all of those, but the one thing that I take the most seriously is being a step-parent. I suppose I take it so seriously because my own memories of childhood are a tabula rasa, the canvas is long and blank and there's nothing to focus my eyes on. I just don't remember anything. I want their memories to be different, but maybe sometimes I give up pieces of myself to get that.
Perhaps that's what being a parent is about.
I wouldn't know.
Melissa is sometimes especially difficult because she's a Daddy's Girl, and always has been. They can both try my patience, no question about that, but I never blow up at either of them. When Jeff is here too he and I content ourselves with each other's company, we play games and watch films (he has been turned on to the Lemony Snicket film and is now even reading the books, which I think is brilliant.) But when it's Melissa, Angus and I, well, sometimes I really feel like an outsider. I never say anything, mostly because Angus is so mad about his daughter and she so mad about him. I don't want to detract from that just because I don't belong. I never had a doting father as a child. I don't know what it feels like, so I wrap myself up in a blanket of numbness and-it has to be said-a little bit of envy.
It must be nice to be a child and feel so loved and so safe.
I wouldn't know that one, either.
So Melissa comes for her 14th birthday. This is a first, we never get them for their birthdays. We grant her with an iPod nano, which becomes the extension of her head for the remainder of her stay. Friday Angus, Melissa and I took a short jaunt on the Chunnel to Calais to buy cheap wine and food for her birthday barbecue and our 4th of July bash (wine is so much cheaper in France the ticket to go there is worth it. We came back with 150 bottles of wine, having spent £600. It would've been at least 2-3 times that cost for alcohol in the UK.) On Sunday all of Angus' extended family is invited over for a barbecue. Melissa has many demands, among them The World's Most Difficult Cake Ever.
Now, in my family, on your birthday you got whatever foods you wanted. That's a rule I carry through today-you get what you want to eat on your birthday. So she wanted The World's Most Difficult Cake Ever and goddammit, she was going to get it. Angus' ex (Melissa's mother) is very talented in this arena and I didn't want to let Melissa down. I can bake a mean cake but decorating is not my kind of thing, Martha Stewart I am not.
Melissa wanted a chocolate cake with raspberry drizzle and chocolate leaves.
When I heard that, my ulcer exploded like Venus.
The World's Most Difficult Cake Ever was indeed a difficult cake to do, but in the end it turned out ok.
(That's raspberry drizzle on the cake and not, as questioned by one of Angus' sisters-in-law, hamburger meat.)
We strung candles up all over the garden as well. I bought some jars with small handles that went up on a wire across half of the back patio.
I had some little tea lights for the rose arbor as well.
And, by her accounts, her barbecue was a success. The roast beef and horseradish sandwiches are scoffed, the Mergeuz sausages disappear. England win the football game, and bottles of wine cracked open (for the grown-ups). We stay up ridiculously late and kids take turns swinging in the hammock. Angus and I had a blow-up earlier that I stamped down-I don't want any negative birthday memories. I want her to feel like she can come back for her next birthday if she wants (but for Christ's sake, I hope she wants a simpler cake.)
Melissa was happy with her birthday party, and that's all that matters.
She even made me a fleece laptop case for my work laptop, which I love.
She left last night, her flight delayed. We giggled over a People magazine we were lucky enough to buy in WH Smith. I got a hug goodbye.
Sometimes being a step-parent is something that makes me want to turn down the covers and go to bed over.
Sometimes it's something that brings a smile to my face.
Regardless, it is a job I take very, very seriously. I think it is the hardest thing that I can possibly do, but if I can be sure that it will cement a good memory in someone's mind, then I will do everything I can to help.
Here's to gardens full of roses, and to not all of us living life as blank canvases.
-H.
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June 26, 2006
And because I left dignity behind in a basket containing my 9th grade retainer and that time I'd farted in assembly, I didn't have any knickers on, either.
As you do.
I pulled into the parking lot and parked up. I reached over for my handbag and went to open the door when a whir of dark blue stopped me. I looked out the window, blinking not unlike an owl. There, next to me, was a Mini convertible. And not just any Mini convertible-a Mini convertible with about the worst parking job in the history of parking jobs. She'd parked partially in my space, as I'd left loads of room on my side of the car in my space. Her sideview mirror was inches away from my car door and, as she was only half-way through her space, I couldn't open my door without hitting her car. I would have to get out the passenger door, which was uncomfortably close to the railed off shopping cart roud-up.
The woman, clad in expensive Gucci sunglasses, raised them and looked at me. I looked back at her-she had at least 15 years on me and into her second generation of facelifts (or so it looked beneath the layer of Max Factor I was blinded by. I could be wrong. Camouflage, you know.) Now, chavviness aside, she was about as fucking rude as it gets. She parked badly, knew it, and did it anyway. She didn't care about the needs of others and I was infuriated, not just because she fit every tacky stereotype known to mankind, but because I froze like a prom date on prom night and all zippy retorts slipped me by, as the Hoochie Mama pranced into the shop.
"Sorry!" she rang out, Burberry bag on her arm, as she walked into the shop without bothering to actually move her vehicle.
Well OK then. She was sorry. She was sorry she parked up her precious, brand-new Mini convertible in such a way as to inconvenience me. She was sorry, so sorry.
It was straight out of Fried Green Tomatoes. I was Kathy Bates.
Me as Evelyn Couch: "Hey! I was waiting for that spot!"
Her, morphed from chicks in miniskirts: "Face it, lady, we're younger and faster!"
This was where I got to be the bigger person. I refrained from shouting obsenities (mostly because I couldn't think of any). I didn't shoot her the bird. I was the height of restraint. This, because she was sorry.
I however was not sorry that I had taken our crap car to the shops, the one that we plan on driving into the ground, the 8 year-old mega-ugly wonder that we don't care about and has the dents to prove it.
I smiled.
Evelyn Couch said: "Face it, girls, I'm older and I have more insurance."
Me? I said: Face it, honey, I'm tired and have a shitty car.
I opened the door and digned the hell out of her sideview mirror.
A few times.
Because, you know, my hand slipped.
Just stop me if I resort to trampoline-bouncing while singing along to Stop in the Name of Love (because no matter what mental health professionals tell you, it is NEVER OK to listen to the Supremes), or shouting "Tawanda!" and shit, ok?
-H.
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June 23, 2006
It was a blinding time full of pink champagne, ridiculous hats, and the sweet smell of horses. Naturally I wore a silly hat, too.
(That was me sitting in a champagne tent, as you can't take the champagne to the seats.)
(No, I have no idea who that guy is behind me.)
I have to come clean-I love Ascot. I really do. I love it for the wrong reasons, though-I love the horses themselves, and I liketo watch the pretension skate by, a la My Fair Lady. I like to watch women stuffed into Prada dresses. I like the car park full of Bentleys and Rolls, and the drivers calmly reading the newspaper, Bluetooth piece in their ear and ready to drive their owners home. I love the champagne tents simply because I love champagne. It's this whole other world to the girl who grew up simply, who doesn't belong but doesn't need to. Maybe that's the anthropologist in me, who knows.
When I finally got my hands on a brochure, I opened it to the later races. For some reason all I could see was a horse named Snoqualmie Boy. Snoqualmie-named (surely) after the falls outside of Seattle, a waterfall I had waded through as a child and as an adult. I hadn't heard of them in years. Snoqualmie, Snoqualmie...it's all I could think about.
I absolutely knew I had to bet on that horse.
I am a conservative gambler, and so only bet a tiny amount on that horse with an each way bet (this means the horse has to place in 1st or 2nd in order to get dosh back). This horse, whose odds were 110 to 1. This horse, who I wanted to slap £20 on the counter to win. This horse, who I had a conservative bet on while the papers were telling us to steer clear of him. I was taught a year ago how to read the stats on horses, and it hasn't failed me yet (I have great success betting on horses, ironically enough. Who knew that one of my few talents would be betting on horses-why can't I be more useful, like curing cancer or making tights that won't run?). But I went outside of those stats because I couldn't get the name out of my head -Snoqualmie Boy. Land of my childhood.
This horse beat all the odds and came in first.
*Cue the unladylike screaming and swearing*
The next horse got my bet simply due to its name as well-Appalachian Trail. Appalachians-the mountains that stood in North Carolina, where I lived and loved. Appalachains, the lazy mountains, the beautiful mountains. I bet on that horse.
This is the horse.
He won, too.
At the end of Ascot I left with a serious champagne buzz and over £170 ($350 USD). It makes me want to weep to wonder if I had caved to my inner voice and plunked down £20 to win, how much money I'd have walked away with. But still, £170. Not bad for a Thursday afternoon.
I guess sometimes a childhood comes in handy after all.
(Awakes this morning with serious hangover.)
-H.
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June 22, 2006
The job involved acquiring companies on behalf of the parent company. It meant assessing the technical and strategic needs of said companies, determining business cases and evolution strategies, and then upon acquiring them being in place for an implementation project. As most of these companies are located in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. this would mean extensive travel and, where willing, the position involved staying in these areas for up to 6 months while completing the transaction.
And I am not interested.
It hit me after I hung up the phone. Standing in the garden I realized I needed to prop up my peonies. The lawn was scattered with dog toys and the sun was coming up over the apple tree. I tapped the outside of my mobile phone and looked around-this was my life now, not a hotel room on the other side of the world.
When I worked for Company X I fought hard and long for every project that came along. In the early days I was away three weeks out of every month and I liked it that way. I would have enough time to come home and confront my mountain of mails, to queue up my bills and water my long-dead plant. I would do my laundry and then I would leave again. I wouldn't have had it any other way, really.
After I moved to Sweden this largely continued, although the travel time went down. In Sweden it was one to two weeks per month of travel, and I logged in every damn night in order to check the pulse of what was happening. Back then I managed project managers and, as a project manager now, I can see I was so hands-on and such a control freak that I don't know how the other project managers didn't revolt and kill me.
But what I remember most was feeling like I was living in two worlds. I was doing what I had always wanted-I was traveling, I had masses of responsibility, and the stamps in both my CV and my passport were piling up. And yet somehow I can remember a distinct level of loneliness. I remember ringing my ex-husband and trying to talk to him. I would be wrapped in cloaks of meetings and travel weariness, I would be scented with a mixture of airplane carpet, mini-bar sealant and hotel soap. Time differences aside it was difficult for him to understand how I was, when there he was at home, bearing scents of the dog, the comfortable couch, a short commute home and a short glass of whiskey. His scents didn't match mine. Connecting on the phone was impossible. I couldn't make myself understood on his end, and he couldn't come across on mine. Even the many years ago when I loved Angus (when didn't I love Angus?) there was a seperation between where he was and where I was, the cotton sheets less soft for the distance.
I think you can't pop in and out of lives like that. You're either in it or you're not. You either are a part of the sunrise and sunset or you don't need to try to understand it.
I have long had a history of being a workaholic. 7 days a week, 365 days a year, no problem. According to my therapist the workaholic is part of my BPD, so this is yet another walk on the path to redemption. To be fair, the hard work has gotten me where I am today, perhaps at the expense of some years off my life. When I lost my job I was so unforgiving (and still am. I understand Company X is undergoing lay-offs as they've found their work force is 'too old'Â now, and seeing as they let people go based on years of service, I get that. They are now faced with a real problem. My response? Hahahahahahahahaha. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck you.)
Then I collapsed that tree down and stopped. Work did not define me. Although my rocket-riding gerbil project has dictated long hours there are times that I still do not even do enough-I have days where I just reach a point that I just can't do anything more and I log off. This, too, is something new for me. I don't always work the super-long hours sometimes because I don't want to. Yes, there is work to be done but I have to live too. My soul has been given away piecemeal over the years, it's time I got it back now. I will absolutely do what I can for my project but it cannot own me.
I sniffed the air in my home. It smelt of lime pie and sunshine, of leaves of paper, peaches and puppy, a dash of old window frames and copper pipes. This is the smell that I love and the smell I am wearing. This is the smell that Angus wears as well, and our smells match. I can stretch out on the bed and tell him about my day and it's not through a phone.
My passport has stamps in it, so many that I had another extension put into it. My CV looks impressive. I have gotten to that point, I think, of that wherever I needed to be. I think about that position, the travel, the business cards with the impressive title I'd have, the responsibility and the prestige that comes with that type of job, the cut-throat high heels and the buttoned down cups of nasty coffee.
I think about it and I don't want any of it.
I want my job to be the kind where I can occasionally work from home in my pajamas. I want short commutes into London that end with me gratefully throwing open our large front door and being greeted by a wagging tail. I want a gin and tonic in our garden and the feel of my own computer chair. I want to stretch my body out next to Angus' in bed at night, our curves and hollows corresponding. I want to know that the meals I eat come from our hands in our kitchen and not through some translated menu with a work weary mind.
I do not pursue the position further. I am desperate to switch jobs but not desperate enough to lose the tender things that I love so much. I have changed, I am changing, and for that I am grateful. I want to smell like my home, perhaps because my home is where I am happiest.
There is no point jumping from worse to worse.
-H
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June 20, 2006
The Good News-HR phoned me and said they were really pleased with my interview. The reason I didn't get the position was I have experience based on gerbils, and the position wanted gerbils with a bit of parakeet on the side. But they were impressed with me and my skill set anyway, so they are meeting with me tomorrow to write up a development plan to, as she said, "get me promoted and get me out of there". Can't say fairer than that.
The Bad News-I don't know how to move forward and there aren't so many opportunities. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up either-what makes me happy? Leading projects? Running engineering teams? Sorting lollipops by color? While the truth is I'd rather be a writer the practical side of things is that I'm stuck in to this industry, so it's here I'll have to stay.
The Good News-hopefully, hopeless human resources will be able to help me on this.
The Good News-My performance review for the year got the highest possible marks that it could get.
The Bad News-I got screwed on my pay rise.
The Bad News-It is bonus time. I was hoping to clear £1000 (that's after Mr. Brown takes his chunk of taxes). I really need the money-I had to get at least that to cover my expenses from Greece, for a personal issue, and because I bought this little beauty (I HAD to have it. I had to. My other one died a painful, mortal death and no amount of kidney transplants was keeping it alive. Angus whipped out all of his doctoring skills and tried to resuscitate it to no avail. I admit to being a consumer-I need the tunes, especially on the long London commute days.) Bonus time is a stressful time. We all walk on eggshells, lest we upset managers who will mark us down (we even tolerate being publicly humiliated by a colleague. How's that for patient?) Last year I was badly screwed on the bonus AND the pay rise.
The Good News-This year, it paid off. I was desperately hoping for at least £1000. I got well over £10,000.
*faints*
-H.
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June 19, 2006
I was to come up with how I felt about addressing some of my issues. The past 8 months have been fact-finding only, to get a view of the mountains before determining where to start the mining operation. Now that the view's been had, the earth-moving equipment is being brought in.
I had decided how I wanted to address my issues-I was going to see if we could find a way to handle it scientifically-identify problem. Examine. Theorize as to nature of problem. Hypothesize about treatment. Apply treatment. Mark issue off on checklist. Move on. These formulas I am familiar with, and like a true punnet square addict I was prepared to get my number 2 pencil out and give it a go. Once upon a time I was a crunchy-granola anthropology student, but all these years as an engineer have taken their toll on me and the Scientific Method is as critical to making choices as my Benefit Brow Zings are to my eyebrows-I don't leave home without either one of them.
But then our shit arrived from Stockholm and all that went out the window. Upon opening boxes that hurt, I quickly compiled all dangerous and toxic items, winged them into combined boxes, and asked Angus to get them out of the house and into the garage lest they contaminate the rest of the house. There were bad things in those boxes. There were things that affected me, and that was not part of the equation, my scientific equation did not include things that go bump in the heart. I accept a life that has to have feeling, that has to have me living it in the first person, but I meant from here on. Now. No, wait. Now. Hold on, let me start over. I mean now.
So I went back to my therapist with a shrug. Personally, I'd prefer it to be like that old math question: If Helen leaves train station A traveling eastbound at 70 mph, at what point will she pass Her Issues on Train B, traveling westbound at 92 mph, and be able to submissively look into the window and see them before their trains move on? And then my next choice is not a choice-I would be happy to just bury them under a few levels of concrete with an absolute promise that I would definitely not, ever, bury things again, just please let's not address these issues, ok? But my couch man, he is not one to bury things, he's a 'let's address it' kind of guy, a "you're feeling something? That is the shit!" professional.
Bugger.
So his proposal is to start blasting down the doors. Only twice in our entire time together has he been able to get an emotional response out of me-once was this time, and once was during the first week of May, when just as I stepped off the tube platform to start the 15 minute walk to his place, I fell apart. I walked sobbing through those streets and didn't stop crying for over an hour. I went into his office and did the deep heaving sobs that one does as a kid, where huge gulps of air fuel the teary fire. I don't do emotions with regards to things that hurt me. I can sit there and talk about things as passively as someone who is just a casual observer, and because I can disassociate most of the time that's exactly what I am. He is clear with me-I am not a psychopath, someone who is unable to feel sadness, rage, happiness, etc. I can feel all of those things, only because I am BPD* I get to step away from them to protect myself from feeling them.
My therapist has a personal war on numbness, which is ok since (as I have learnt) numb isn't really numb, it's just shit lying low for now.
Being in therapy continues to be something that I am 100% committed to doing. I don't kid myself that my prospects are bleak without it. I don't deny that I have issues**, and in order to stop being an imposter amongst the living, I need to get rid of them and learn how to lie down and sleep next to them. Starting therapy was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Continuing it is quite possibly the easiest.
My guy, he wants to start with Kim. You know, the little things. I am to bring my silver box in this week, which we will open together. He has yet to get a reaction from me about Kim, and if I have it my way, he never will. He says there are many things that we have to deal with, some of them that have spread like a fungus over my entire outlook, some with lines of poison running through my past, but maybe some of the more recent are easier. I don't say one thing or another-I have recent things, including family, fights with Angus, work hell, divorce, job loss.
Why Kim you might ask (or maybe you wouldn't but I am a presumptuous cow, and I asked it myself)? Based on a series of questions, my therapist came to a conclusion. He asked the date that Kim died, and you know what? I can't remember it. I never can. I can remember his birthday, the day we met, and other things but I can never, ever remember the date of his death. He asked me how often I talk to him. This startled the fuck out of me-I had never told anyone I did that. I used to talk to him daily, and though it's less often now, I still do talk to him. It's always in the car while I'm driving-I will turn the radio off and just talk to him, even though I never plan to do it, even though half the time I don't realize I'm doing it.
My therapist scrutinizes me constantly when I talk of Kim, which is incredibly rare-he tends to give me space or else I get cagey and whip out 20 dollar words, a thesaurus my own personal gates barring entry to getting too close to me. I often don't make eye contact and I don't cry. I don't want to do either.
So we start off today by blowing the lid off my silver box. It will be Round 1 in the fixing of Helen. We are now nearing the hard part, the part where I go through what is known as CBT, or cognitive behavior therapy. Basically, a BPD person has to have their thoughts and beliefs explored and destroyed, like the Marines we have to be broken and then put back together again, only instead of being created into simper fi, we simply become human.
It is as Ann Sexton said: I begin to see. Today I am not all wood.
Kim. My therapist feels that I have never dealt with his death.
Maybe the truth is, I never dealt with his life.
-H.
*BPD stands for borderline personality disorder, not bi-polar disorder. It's an environmental condition, meaning it's not passed down genetically. There are many theories on how one becomes BPD but none of them involve murky gene pools. This instruction is for the asshole that felt the need to dump all over my other site***. I keep writing about my own issues because it helps me and I hope perhaps it can help others. If you want to learn more about BPD this excellent book describes what life is like both being BPD and living with a BPD.
** And if you want to follow up in the comments about how having issues perhaps makes me unfit for wanting to be a mother, my therapist and I have spent a great deal of time talking about that, too. He says I am ok to be a mother, as one of the premises of me wanting therapy is that I want cycles to be broken. In his words, the mere fact that I constantly revisit how to be a good mother in our sessions is proof that I would do my very best to be the best mother I could be. I suppose that's all anyone can ask for.
*** Jesus Christ I sound defensive but I'm really not. No really. Honnnnnnnnest.
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June 16, 2006
When I wrote the post in my head as we went, it was humorous, peppy, and full of light. Now that I sit here in front of the open MT screen the post isn't so humorous or peppy, but the light, she is everywhere. This post may not be to the sarcastic standard because I look back on our week there with a sense of wonder-only one other time in my life was I not ready to go home yet (the ever-lovely New Zealand.) It's not as though I wanted to live my life on Santorini because I don't-it's a fantastic picturesque island with incredible people-but I was so incredibly content and relaxed there. Although this was Angus' first trip to Greece, I had been to Santorini 4 years ago. Suffice to say it's this trip that will pave my memory now.
So this may not be my usual blow-by-blow account, instead I give you pictures.
We flew to Santorini from Gatwick, then took a high speed ferry to Crete. We hired a car there and for the next two days went to Matala, to Agia Nicholas, and up and down barely charted side roads, roads with no names and through little villages largely untouched by tourists, where Greek Orthodox priests sat drinking coffee and young village boys would smile and wave at the car. This was unexplored Crete, the untourist Crete, the Crete that you would want to know.
All I had ever known of Crete before came out of my archaeology courses and a Nancy Drew novel I barely remembered. The real Crete was vast and beautiful. The people were extraordinary. One case-one evening in a restaurant Angus and I dined, while a Swedish group sat at another table. Their children were running around being terrors (as Swedish children can be-before sending hate mail, please note I am not saying that all Swedish children are difficult) and at one point Angus and I finally got fed up and asked the parents in our rusty Swedish) to please, could they possibly have them be a bit quieter? The Swedes complied and the man at the next table-a man who kept staring at us and had an impressive scar on his face-smiled at us. The waiters then proceeded to ply us with a carafe of wine on the house and free dessert, as it turns out the scarred man was the manager and was grateful for our intervention.
Little things. Chefs would drag you into their kitchens, where their mothers were cooking, to suggest authentic meals "not on the menu". We would take them up on it. People smiled, people wave, and in general you get the feeling that Crete is one of the last remaining pockets of friendliness.
We had views.
Really amazing views, simple but dramatic.
We got stuck in severe Crete traffic jams.
I travelled with the cutest man on the island.
He travelled with a chick who just couldn't stop smiling.
We had each other.
From Crete we took the ferry back to Santorini (and this time, I was seasick. Always a pleasant part of the holiday, really.) We stayed in the main town of Fira, which is renowned for its beauty.
But we decided to not spend all our days in Fira, so we hired a quad bike to tour the whole island.
We saw the black volcano beaches. As the English team touched the ball in the World Cup, we were worlds away seeing a spiralling lighthouse, a beacon warning of the sharp Santorini cliffs. We spent our time on little village roads, my arms wrapped around his waist, the wind exhiliarating.
And of course, there were the Greek churches. Greece has incredible churches, most of them tiny like this one on Crete:
And some of them are the model blue-domed white Greek churches, stunning beauties that just appear on the horizon and make one more inclined to find God, after all.
The churches were everywhere, even within sight of each other.
We toured the little town of Oia (pronounced EE-ya), a quiet gem with a slower pace but filled with view of the ocean and filled with bourganvillea and geraniums that have been growing for many years.
They have lots of artsy tpe of shops (like where I bought the little red dress) and Angus bought me a gorgeous ring.
Whenever possible, I dipped my feet into the Aegean Sea.
I marevelled in the traditional world of Santorini, like this mule driver.
And above all, the one thing that Santorini is infamous for is incredible sunsets. It didn't deliver one until the last evening, but when it did, it was worth it.
We would sit outside on the balcony and watch the sun go down every night, a bottle of wine at our fingertips.
But above all, we just couldn't keep our hands off each other. We had action every day (sometimes twice a day), and one evening we had that kind of making love that you don't get to have very often, but when you have it the intensity is overwhelming. We were always holding hands, taking pictures of each other, and now when I look back to those days on Santorini, it's with the memory of me grinning wildly on the back of a quad bike, my body pressed behind my boy's, my mind far from the modern world.
I am still relaxed and happy.
I am back to myself.
Expect posting to now go back to normal, because I once was lost but now am found again. It happens for me. I just need to get back to the basics sometimes to remember what happened to me.
-H.
PS-more pics to be uploaded to my Flickr account, there on the sidebar.
PPS-the interview went well I think. I may not get the job but (and this is no sour grapes here) I'm pretty fucking proud of myself for even trying. It's proof to me that I am ready to get out of a bad situation and it took guts to even apply. I should hopefully hear something today.
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June 15, 2006
One year ago I had a very bad day (you won't find it in my archives as I have deleted it). In fact I had a no-good, rotten very bad day, the kind of which you realize that getting out of bed was a simple waste of calories. It was a major day and it should have been a triumph. What instead transpired was something straight out of a Greek tragedy (only none of my family members were blinding or marrying each other, so really, maybe I shouldn't complain.)
All because I x'ed when I should have y'ed.
One year ago I was degraded and humiliated. I went to work in a smart, clean tailored dress and business jacket, heels and make-up that could be paired with the word "effort", and I left a bitter ball. I threw the dress away and haven't worn heels to work since. I was in fact so stressed and upset that I rid my closet of any clothes that could be even remotely construed as provocative.
I hadn't been back to that place since, that place of feeling like I could show off any part of me. While it's not wise to do so in the workplace and I completely accept that, as an engineer, wet T-shirts and Daisy Dukes are not in my appropriate work ensemble (and they have never been part of my home ensemble either, actually), my new "I'm Amish, Why Aren't You?" philosophy has also extended to my personal life, and short dresses and any hints of skin went by the wayside. I was made to feel ashamed of myself because of how I looked. I didn't want personal reminders of it. I remembered the burning shock of being reduced to "just a woman" all too clearly.
So there we were in Santorini. Santorini was the second half of the holiday, the first half being in the warm and kind island of Crete. I had begun to chill out, and I needed it-recently work has hit new lows. I have a tic in my left eyelid again that throbs obviously when I get stressed. Tic tic tic tic tic I have 2500 emails. Tic tic tic tic tic I have to deal with that guy again. I managed to put it behind me in Crete, the work blended away and the eye resumed its normal ocular duties, only I woke up once in a panic and there it was-tic tic tic tic tic.
I had been having a nightmare about work. The tic even follows me when I sleep. My nice Dr. Henry tells me the tic is stress induced, and I think he's right.
It isn't too far-fetched to be extra-stressed and having nightmares, as a few days before we went on holiday I was betrayed by someone in the company. He let me take all the blame and attack for something which was not my team's fault, and when I logically and professionally outlined why the assumptions that my team made a mistake were faulty, he lept on the bandwagon of proportioning out blame. It was then I saw that the soup of the day was Scape of the Goat, and I was served up with a dollop of creme fraiche and some croutons.
Tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic tic went into overdrive.
I forced myself to not think about it.
I mostly succeeded, but when I failed, there it was-tic tic tic.
And so it was that we went into a shop in Oia, a fantastic little shop with fantastic little things, and I saw a fantatic little dress on the fantastic little shelf. I went for the long floor version of it, until Angus asked me why didn't I try on the short one? The short one, a nice A-line number with a shorter inside lining that doesn't hug the body tightly but looks cute?
My God. The short one was so short. So short that people....people would see me. Angus looked confused. "I don't understand what the problem is?" he asked. "You look fucking great."
"It's so short," I whisper. "I used to like my long legs showing but now...after last year, it's too hard."
"It's not like you'll wear this dress to work, babe," Angus replies. He's right, and the idea never even crossed my mind. But the problem is, it never occurred to me that I could be myself outside of work, either. I try the dress on. There is indeed more of me showing than I have had in a while. It is a lovely color and is not see through save for a small strip at the very bottom of the hem (well below the Magic Zone, which is safely ensconsed. Abracadabra.). Despite my nervousness, I buy the dress.
I am not a beautiful woman. I am average, and in being average I take great comfort. But I wore that dress the next day and I was amazed at how beautiful I could feel.
I realized that none of it is worth it-the tic tic tic tic tic. The stress. The inability to feel like I am worthy of anything, even after I work my ass off. My loyalty to my team is fierce but it cannot be what holds me here.
I wear my dress, and remember what it is like to feel good about myself in whatever small ways I can.
It is absolutely not suitable for work, but it is perfect for a summer barbecue or a walk on a Grecian island.
I wear my dress and my phone rang while I was there-it was the one call I did take. I had applied for an internal job, a large promotion in another area, away from rocket-riding gerbils. They wanted to interview me. They liked the sound
of me.
I have my interview this morning.
I am done with feeling bad.
-H.
PS-it is also my three year anniversary of blogging today. How's that for big days?
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June 13, 2006
We're tired, happy, our skin is lightly browned and above all, we are incredibly relaxed. Isn't that strange? Relaxed...finally.
I had forgotten how amazing that feels.
Our home PCs are buggered so more about the trip and the pictures shortly. For now, I give you Oia and the Aegean Sea.
I didn't want to come home.
-H.
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June 06, 2006
I have over 2,000 emails.
I don't even know how many voice mails.
Every day is a daily struggle to get through the politics and me? I'm not clever enough to do them. I'm just not. I don't even wish I was-it simply isn't me, never has been, and never will be. I don't want to lead the world, I just want to feel that being part of the troops is ok.
And then sometimes, you just need to sun yourself.
So we're off to Santorini and Crete for 7 days. Away-to recycle. Renew. Re-use. To forget about the hellhole that is work, and then to come back and try to cut down work emails, personal emails, and make a dent in this thing called life.
I'll see you in a week. Until then, if I can remind you about The Gorby Corner? All proceeds go directly to the RSPCA.
Our little rescue man, currently residing happily with Angus' brother until we return next Tuesday, thanks you.
As do I.
-H.
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June 05, 2006
Fourth of July parties have occurred in my household for my entire life, including the 7 years since I've left the States. While in Sweden it was an excuse to go and get drunk, in England it's slightly different-it's an excuse to go and get drunk and fire off massive explosives. It does feel a bit strange to celebrate Independence Day in England-OK, remember that time when we dumped all your tea in the harbor? Wasn't that great? Dude-talk about a fucking mess! Or the more obvious-Let's celebrate! Come on over! This is the day we signed a piece of paper to kick all ya'll out of our country! My name could have been Nigella, if'n you'd not taken the time to powder your wigs. Yeeeeeehaw!
But we don't really celebrate it that way.
We're more of a "eat too much and get drunk" kind of family.
We've had people round for 4th of July before, and this year is no exception. We're just going bigger now. Much bigger. And with a garden the size of New Jersey, we can do. We decorate with a few American flags here and there (including my fabulous 48-starred number) and enjoy loads of liquor. And since fireworks are legal here, we buy what we call the Big Fuck-Off packages, because what better way to celebrate your country's independence than to literally send your money up in smoke?
The biggest fun is the food. It is also the biggest issue. Why is this an issue? It's food. It's not a big deal.
Oh but it is. It is a big deal. On the 4th of July and Thanksgiving, things have to be a certain way.
I'm a flexible person-I can take a lot of bending. Yoga? Sure, that's a literal definition, but it works. I am flexible there. Accepting my boyfriend calling the dog Mr. Chov as opposed to Gorby? I flit, I float, I fleetly flee I fly. But food on those two key American holidays?
Inflexible.
Witness the near-bust up we had last Thanksgiving when Angus suggested shoving an onion up my bird's ass. An onion...in my turkey. My recipe doesn't call for an onion in my turkey. I have a specific turkey recipe that I have used since the dawn of time (and which is pretty damn good, even if I don't eat meat myself anymore.) It is part of a ritual, a process, a rite of passage. It does not include an onion in the cavity of my fucking fowl, I don't care if that's how Angus' Mum, the Queen, or John Cusack make it. La la la la la peer pressure does not work on me.
But I went ahead and did it anyway. That's how flexible I am.
(And I lied, I can totally cave on peer pressure.)
(And all did say the turkey was fantastic, so clearly there is scope in my turkey portfolio for a change requests, wherein I adopt legumes and/or root vegetables into my poultry.)
Or what about the complete severing of my relationship I had with Delia Smith? Delia (or as she has become known in our household, that "c" word), whose recipes I tend to enjoy even if I think she's a bit weird (Norwich-loving muffin baker who I imagine is a swinger in her spare time). But Delia and I came to blows a few years back, when perusing her cookbook I saw she had a special section on the American Fourth of July. She'd been to a barbecue you see, therefore she was an expert.
Now, I live here in the UK and I have learnt many things, including the following: Channel 5 has the grottier shows, Big Brother is a pain in my ass, Oyster Cards are great and I really do need to get one, and I haven't a fucking clue as to how to make the perfect English Sunday roast and should I attempt it I do believe they have "Attempting To Impersonate English Cuisine" as a hanging offense (and before I get mail claiming that English food is crap, let me just say this-10 years ago you'd be right. When I was here then, the food was cooked to an inch of its life. No actually, it was cooked past that. I think English cooking has come a very long way since then. Think Jamie Oliver and the S&M master Gordon Ramsey, and you'll see what I mean.)
But Delia...oh Delia, you Fetish Lover. Sigh. Among some of the things she listed things as "traditional 4th of July food" were Cos, Webb and Rocket Salad (Rocket=arugula in the US). I wouldn't know a Cos or a Webb if one came up and gave me an orgasm. She lists oven-roasted rosemary and garlic potatoes as a dish as well which, while I love the recipe and have used it often, I have never used it in the States on a day that is traditionally hotter than the sun.
And she lists hot fudge sundaes as the dessert.
Hot fudge sundaes is where we broke up.
Hot fudge fucking sundaes. Who the hell has those as traditional 4th of July fare? Who, and why don't they admit that they really only have hot fudge sundaes on those days they go beserk at Sonic, ordering the cherry limeade, the extra large cheese-covered tater tots, and just for good artery measure go for the sundaes?
Which is what takes us to the coming 4th of July. In the stairwell, Angus asks me what we should serve.
"Hot dogs and hamburgers," I reply promptly.
"Er...I was thinking of pulled pork and beef joints," he replies.
I stop and think. Can we coat those in barbecue sauce? Is that something that Hooters would serve?
"Ok, that's fine." I reply. I am fleeeeeeeexible.
"Served in a baguette," he adds.
And bendy comes to a halt.
"Hot dog bun," I counter. I truly love my boyfriend. TRULY.
He visibly blanches. "Hot dog bun?"
"Hot dog bun! Your people must suffer as my people have suffered! Let them eat hot dog bun!" I cry dramatically, thrusting a sword at my breast.
"OK, what about a nice white loaf? We can slice it up nicely?" He asks.
And I drop the sword as I hear in my mind Eddie Murphy: All we have is Wonder Bread...
"It'll be nice," he adds.
That don't look like no McDonald's
"What do you think?" He smiles hopefully.
And you try to put some ketchup on it and it mixes with the grease, turn the bread into pink dough. Then you grab it and get fingerprinted and you got big, pink fingerprints in the dough.
"What do you think?"
Where you get that big, welfare, green-pepper burger?
"I think baguettes should be fine." I reply with a smile.
-H.
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I prefer Caramel fudge from Ben & Jerry's (Caramel Sutra June 02, 2006
Also on the list of "oh my god, what a freaky child", I used to include Rudolph Valentino in my bedtime prayers (so there's a guy that got a pretty big boost-off of his time in purgatory). I guess not many people can say they prayed for Rudolph Valentino (and if they did, I would like to reply-WHY?), although I also prayed for Eva Marie Saint, which also plays this inconsistency game as she wasn't dead.
I haven't always been a heathen, it's more of a recent thing.
Throughout my life, there has often been a movie character that I could identify with, who I could empathize with on some level. After all, if you're a person without a baseline grabbing hold of an anchor sent over by MGM is pretty easy. Often my characters were uncomfortable. Rarely were they the heroine. Never were they the cool ones.
And my formative years were the 80's, also known as the decade of Teen Films, for which I will always thank Universal Studios for giving me the measure with which to base my personality.
For instance, I was never the one who got to be Ariel in Footloose. Thin, fabulous, with those red cowboy boots and a repressive pastor father that you just know had sexual fantasies of taking it up the ass. She was cool, she was popular, and she was willing to ride between two cars while a massive truck was headed her way because she lived life on the edge. Oh no, I would never be her, because:
A) I'd be too freaked out to play traffic chicken like that
B) I've never been that thin
C) I swear upon my love for Ranch Corn Nuts that I will never own a pair of red cowboy boots.
D) I dance like Elaine Benes from Seinfeld.
I remember that film Some Kind of Wonderful as well. Everyone wanted to be the Mary Stuart Masterson character, the one who got the zombie-looking Eric Stoltz and the diamond earrings in the end. All the girls I knew all heaved a sigh and said "I am so totally that character. I get her."
Really?
You understand someone wearing fringed gloves? Really? Who hung out while her best friend went after Lea Thompson, who you don't hold a candle to? You get that?
Sadism. Rampant in junior high, I tell you.
Andy from Goonies also passed me by. Not only did I not understand her character and her complete inability to solve world peace ("Does Bran wear braces?" Oh yeah he does, Cheerleading Wonder. Totally. He just removes them like yesterday's condom.) but she was the popular bubbly cheerleader, albeit one who strangely hung out with the unpopular, andrognyous Stef (the ever incredibly unattractive Martha Plimpton, aka "bag over that mantlepiece, woudja'?".) I'm thining I would be the Stef character, which I guess is at least some relief that I wouldn't be Chunk.
I did understand Molly Ringwald's character. No, not the cool Claire in Breakfast Club, or even the kooky Sam in Sixteen Candles. I understood the severe outcast and mild embarrassment of Andie in Pretty in Pink. People also used to tell me that I looked exactly like her when my hair was red, which used to be nice only over time Molly has turned all horsey-faced, and perhaps that's my fate as well. Cute one day, horsey-faced the next. These things happen.
I did also get Lee in Secretary. Fumbling, shy, constantly feeling inadequate, yet able to leap tall buildings while chained and wearing handcuffs. I too am constantly inadequate and bumbling, all the while the kinky stuff? Good fun.
The one I really, really understood was Charlotte in Lost in Translation, but in that film? I also understood Bob. I don't know how many times I have been a stranger in a strange land, in a marriage that sort of fits but wasn't a shrink to fit. I don't know how many times I've stared out the 20th floor of an all-glass wall of a hotel, overlooking a foreign city and wondering where the next best thing was. And the phone call Bob had, laying on the bed? Been there, done that. Connecting with someone via wire when you can't connect to them in person, you wishing you were there and them wishing that too, only it doesn't turn out well. The moral of the story being to either never go away, or never ring home if you do.
I really felt like that character, and for a long time.
The only problem is, I don't look as good in pink mesh panties.
I wish I could say I was the cool Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding, or the enigmatic Cameron Diaz in Something About Mary, or the lovely and carefree Sloane in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But I wasn't and I'm not. That's just not how I am geared. I understand and empathize with the nerds, the dorks, the outcasts, and those who should fit their own skin, but don't. Surely I am not alone in this,
As long as I don't feel like Shrek, I guess everything is ok.
Or Carrie.
Yeah, that'd be a bad one to empathize with.
-H.
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June 01, 2006
1) I'm a phone-a-phile. Our mobile phones run our lives, because that's the business we're in (makes me wonder what I'd be like if I ran a butcher's shop. Or a whorehouse. In some circumstance, I guess they're the same thing.) We both have specific ways our phones have to be set up or else we get all twitchy and emotionally unavaibale, and for me ring tones are key. Although I am not adhering to it currently as we're testing a number of phones for work purposes in the house (therefore changing out our handsets constantly), generally when people ring me I know who is calling as I have a set number of ring tones I use to identify people. Bloc Party's "So Here We Are" is my general tone, "Tainted Love" comes up for Angus, my project managers on my team all herald their arrival with the Snoopy Dance song from Charlie Brown, and my managers get the Star Wars Death March.
When I get a voice mail, the message comes up as "Beans" as my hatred for kidney beans is equaled to my hatred of voice mails (during busy times, I have been known to amass over 30 voice mails a day. My hatred is thus well-founded.)
2) I have a birthmark on my left hip that is the size and shape of a strawberry. I think it's cute., however no one but me ever seems to remember that I have one. It's one of my favorite quizzes to pull on Angus. "Where's my birthmark, baby?" A frowed brow ensues, along with "Umm....the inside of your right elbow?"
See? He clearly has a perfect mind map of my body.
3) I cycle through breakfast foods. I will have a monthly favorite that I will eat every day (London travel permitting), and I will look forward to it every morning like a kid dancing around the soggy gin-soaked department store Santa knee at Christmastime. In April, I had a 4-minute boiled egg and toast every morning. I craved it, I might've died without it, I had to have it. In May, it became yogurt topped with granola-if I could just have it every morning, the world would be a safe place for both pedestrians and children. Now I am in-between-June has started and I need a breakfast pattern, only I haven't decided what it is yet. I think it may involve tofu bacon. I have a hankering (for a hunk of cheese) for that right now.
4) The perfumes I wear smell like things-Stila's Creme Bouquet, Demeter's Laundromat, Jaqua's Buttercream Frosting. Scents mean more to me when they are tangible comfort smell, I wouldn't know a ylang ylang if one came up and smacked me in the face and told me I owed it money.
5) I just started something I used to swear off-I like puzzles. Not those things that have a loop stuck around two pieces of wood, where the object is to get them off the wood and use them as a belay device a la McGuyver, (I think those puzzles have only one purpose-to beat the inventor of them and tell him that if stops making those puzzles now, he may get to keep his monocular). I mean I like things that make me think (although again strangely, I don't like sudoku. I don't see the point. If you want to do a punnet square then do one, don't fuck around with numbers 1-9). The computer and DS games I play have some kind of puzzle element. I was never a fan of jigsaw puzzles, only I opened one up last weekend and put together the 1000-piece puzzle and immediately ordered another one once that one was finished.
I can't believe I am publicly confessing I like jigsaw puzzles. I may be one step away from making crochet hats bearing googly eyes for my spare toilet paper rolls now.
No that's not true. I'd stop at the googly eyes.
6) I stress out badly with certain time-restrictive things. Not so much stress, really, as "freak the fuck out and take everyone with me" kind of reaction. Trains are one of my triggers-I like to leave the house 30 minutes ahead of time so that I can park, get my ticket, and wait on the platform with nary a drop of perspiration jetting down my forehead (I'm totally lying there. I don't usually get forehead sweat, I actually get the Asian-pattern top of lip sweat, aka the sweatstache). I get extremely razzled by running desperately for trains, I just hate it. It's the same thing with flights. That "be there an hour and a half before the flight" thing? Fine with me. I'm happy to park my ass with a book and wait, just so I don't have to stress. On a less severe note, strangely the same applies with movies. I want to be there early so I can have the seat I want. I detest running late for a film start, and while I don't love the 20 minutes of ads, I will sit through them in order to not be stressed.
I know-I am one step away from being Meryl Streep's character in Lemony Snicket.
Actually considering my love for grammar, I guess I'm already there.
Fuck.
7) I cannot tolerate people that leave the stickers and plastic film on their items. People who do that have something chemically wrong with them, like people who wear Members Only jackets and those who don't own a TV. Some of my team used to keep the film on their phone screens but they know better than that now as I can't resist taking off the film-if they bring it within a 5 meter radius of me I will have to remove the plastic. I literally can't stop myself. These days Peter just plunks down a box of new phones in front of me and lets me go to it. Film left on phones is the equivalent of covering the couch in a layer of cling film-who does that? Why would you do that? That's like packing up your couch in tupperware, minus the burping. It is absolutely a compulsion I can't resist-if the prime minister walked by with plastic film over his phone I'd be sent down to prison for assault as I reached for him to take it off. A guy I work with had one on his PSP, and I took it off, kissed it, and put it back on for him.
I will get a song in my head and then have to have it on my iPod, where I can listen to it many times in a row until the compulsion has worked its way out. It was like that recently with Metisse's "Boom Boom Ba". I heard it on my Dead Like Me DVD and thought: If I don't get this song I may die. It was so desperate that I had to break down and order the soundtrack to The Next Best Thing just to have it, and that's some kind of shame, ordering a CD from a Madonna movie. It's a sign of collapse. I mean, what's next, watching Swept Away in my former wedding dress while eating chili and swigging liquid from the bottom of my ficus tree?
9) There are two things that a refrigerator must always have-juice and cheese. Many things can come and go from a refrigerator but my own Midas evaluation comes from cheese and juice. There's no cheese and juice in there, then we have a category 4 emergency, which is second only to a category 5-emergency, known as "Oh My God, Run For Fuck's Sake As There's Another Robert Urich Made For TV Movie On Again" (This is where I get Billy Bob Thornton's strange phobias. He has phobias of antiques and the color orange. I myself nurse a Robert Urich phobia. And if it's a Robert Urich/Rue McClanahan made for TV movie on then I simply curl up in a ball and go catatonic.)
10) In this house, when the going gets rough, we have a drink (yeah, um, I know that's not really news. Consider it the introductory premise of this point then, yes?). In this house, we also try to get away for a few days to put the balance back in the bubble level (again, not a shock if you've been reading here for a while. Work with me here.) Since we have had a massive amount of stress lately (think 2000+ unread work mails, my complete inability to sit down and write anything, the past two weeks of daily fucking rain and a few other problems) we are then heeding our own advice, and going away.
We leave next Tuesday for 7 days on the Greek Islands of Santorini and Crete (but only if I can get the ferry right between Santorini and Crete, otherwise we have 7 days in Santorini, and this is stressing me to fuck. I absolutely know this will have little sympathy-Me: "Wah! I can't get the timings right on my exotic and beautiful Greek holiday!" You: "Really? Cry me a fucking river, babe.")
It will of course also entail introductory anxiety over train times, flights and ferries, but you can't win all the time.
-H.
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
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