At our barbecue two weeks ago one of our friends said an interesting thing. Per-a Swedish ex-colleague to both Angus and I (at different points in our saga known as Working for Company X) and his family attended our shindig. Drinking a large pint of beer and standing casually against the kitchen counter, Per was looking around the kitchen while I chopped tomatoes for the salad.

'Wow, Helen,' he said, Swedish accent now under attack from his length of time now in England. 'You're very domestic. It's amazing. Do you hate it?'

I chuck the stems of the tomatoes into our little compost bin. 'No, why?' I ask, turning to him and wiping my hands on a towel I'd slung over my shoulder.

'It's just so unlike you. When I met you, you were this fast-moving, big city London girl. You know, late parties, constant travel, never living in a house with no restaurants nearby. It's so different.'

I stare at him. 'Are you sure you're thinking of the right person?' I ask him. Late parties? London girl? What the fuck?

'Yeah, absolutely. You were this nightclub chick. It's amazing to see you so domestic.' He slugs the beer and, upon being beckoned by his daughter outside, heads out to the call of parental duty.

I stare at his departing figure and wonder when it was that Angus snuck LSD into the veggie sausages.

I look after Per's retreating figure and have this insane desire to shout: "Do-over!"

And here is a strange theme I've been seeing. One of Angus' colleagues commented, upon hearing that we were headed to Santorini, that 'there might not be enough nightclubs there, Helen may be bored.' Saturday night Angus' brother asked me for a favor at a family barbecue-he needed to entertain some clients at a nice London restaurant-since I ate out there a lot, could I recommend one?

Since I what? Huh? What?

Curious about this, I asked Angus. Clad in a pair of boxers, no makeup, and a paint splattered Old Navy T-shirt we were making yet another run to the tip to drop off garden cuttings. Brushing a spider from my arm, I turn to him, propping my feet up on the dashboard.

'When you met me, did you think I was all '˜I'm little Miss City Action Girl'? Like, nightclubs and restaurants, and parties?'

He considers it. 'Well, yeah. I mean, you didn't really do '˜domestic stuff'. You ate out several times a week, you didn't want to own a house.'

'You used to worry I'd get bored if we were ever together,' I said, brushing blowing leaves off of me.

'I did,' he concurs.

I consider this. I have absolutely no idea how I got a reputation for being a bar-hopping club-banging all-night-partying kind of chick. The last time I went to a nightclub was a year and a half ago (it was ok, but not great music.) Before that? 2003. Before that? No idea. Nightclubs-not really my kind of thing. Expensive drinks, boys who get touchy-feely, sticky things on the floor and throbbing music that rides the techno wave. Gee, what's not to love?

The thing is, I fucking love this life. I love our house. I love that it's at the end of an unmade road. I love that people can't find the place.

It's fabulous to re-paint the walls whatever color I want. I have a garden that I am useless at, but goddamn it, it's my garden (and I'll cry if I want to). I read cookbooks occasionally for inspiration and like scouring antique shops. My favorite clothes are sweats, boxers and T-shirt, under which I nearly always am commando.

The image of me in a short skirt, a martini glass in one hand and a nightclub bracelet wrapped around the other is not something I see myself as, mostly because my green boxers with flamingos all over them would not be a welcome sight, I'm thinking. Might not match my pink sparkly strappy shoes.

We went to a neighborhood barbecue the other night. Sitting under a gazebo, glasses of wine in hand, we met our neighbors. It was nice to talk to them, they're incredibly polite...and the other end of the spectrum. I got to hear chapter and verse about the woman three doors down, and her grandkids. We talked about sewage drains-ours packed up a week ago and Angus and I got to spend an afternoon with a plunger the size of the Chrysler building unplugging about 10 years worth of grease and dog hair from our kitchen drain in the driveway. The neighborhood commiserated and they explored the issue far too much for my liking-they wanted to commiserate and bond over clogged drains while I wanted to burn the clothes and flesh from our bodies from the memory alone of the unclogging experience.

The night took a truly bizarre turn when they talked about their success last year at the village's yearly fete, in which one of the neighbors entered her tomatoes but-gasp-didn't win.

I thought my legs were going to fall off.

Later on, I climbed on top of the plasma TV box that we still had in the living room. Because...I could, and because...well...it was there.

'Tomatoes,' I winge. 'It was all about tomatoes.' I lay back, draped across the enormous cardboard box. This seems to be the dichotomy. You have appletini swilling on one hand, tupperware parties on the other. I can be the cool dancing hungover freak or the chick hand-making a wreath. I can be trying to lay the hottest guy in the bar or the one trying to get the best gladiolas on the block. Dick, flowers...it's such a choice.

It is fantastic to live in our little country home. It is also fantastic to occasionally have to take a train into London for work or mental health purposes. It's great to live in a little slice of rural bliss, but also calming to know that we're less that 45 minutes away from one of the biggest cities in the world. I love our home, but I also love our travels. Does loving where we are mean I have to start growing vegetables in earnest? Do I need to learn the names and interests of all of our neighbors grandkids? Must I spend my time wondering not only why people make their own jam, but how?

'There has to be a middle ground," I sigh. "I can't be Miss Nightclub, but I don't wanna be Miss 4-H. It can't be nightclubs vs tomatoes.'

Angus looks up, smiling. 'We don't grow tomatoes.'

Fair point.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 06:39 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 1110 words, total size 6 kb.

1 Living in the boonies and working in the city fills both my needs as well. My nightclub days are long gone but they are a part of me.

Posted by: Donna at July 17, 2006 04:21 PM (Aanzg)

2 The fun part is finding your own dichotomy. And then shocking hell out of the poor neighbours.

Posted by: caltechgirl at July 17, 2006 07:13 PM (/vgMZ)

3 I see no problem here. As Walt Whitman said: "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." It's all one big adventure. Enjoy yourself and just roll with the changes.

Posted by: ~Easy at July 17, 2006 07:23 PM (CZPRx)

4 I don't see a problem with all that. Describes me perfectly too (well, years ago, anyway...LOL)

Posted by: kenju at July 17, 2006 08:21 PM (2+7OT)

5 Nothing wrong with being a bit "crunchy granola", and you still have London!...='s Awesome kinda people you are!!! We just got the first eggs from our first try at having chickens (Rhode Island Reds) and yesterday I was in the Anti-Flag mosh pit at Portland's Warped Tour!!!!YEAH BABY!!!

Posted by: J.M at July 17, 2006 10:27 PM (k3v0Q)

6 The middle ground includes taking your twelve year old daughter (and a friend) to see MxPx and Reel Big Fish on Saturday night at an all-ages concert at a local club (with adult supervision) and spending kid-free weekends drinking far too late in the evening and being hungover on sundays. Trust me, there are plenty of us who don't care how big someone's tomatoes are (though i do grow them because I love tomatoes). There's plenty of fun insanity in the suburbs...you just have to know where to find it.

Posted by: trouble at July 18, 2006 09:14 PM (j2vfb)

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