January 31, 2007

Change The Record

Yesterday felt like a bad day.

I say "felt like" because I've upgraded to Helen 2.1, and this new version doesn't come with bad days. It comes with ponies, soft fluffy kittens (and kitten posters), and skipping down the pavement with an element of narcisisstic glee. So since my upgrade I'm the Newer, Happier Helen, and I don't do bad days.

Only yesterday might have been one.

The day started off innocently enough. I was due to head in to London at oh-God-hundred and drop off my limp and wheezing laptop to the company laptop doctor. Only once I got there, laptop doctor decided he'd rather do housecalls, and so he didn't even go in to the office.

I took a deep breath. Ok, that's fine. I'll just chill by going to Starbucks. I think I'll try...hmm, you know? Maybe I'll try a chai tea latte today. That'll be nice.

I get to the counter. "Hi, I'd like a tall skinny tai chi latte."

She looks confused.

"Sorry," I grin. "I mean can I have a tall skinny tai chi latte?" Fuuuuuck! Why won't this come out right?

"I don't understand," she replies, a thick Eastern European accent coming out.

Breathe deep, Hel. "I'd like a tall skinny chai tea latte, please. Whew! I said it. I bet people say it wrong all the time!" I laugh.

"No, you're the first I've heard," replies the woman.

Oh.

The drink comes out and I really enjoy it, up until the bottom third of the cup, and then the drink starts burning my throat badly-it's like gingerbread gone wrong or something. So I tip the rest out and head to my therapist's.

Therapy goes well. I show him that "inferior without consent" picture from Friday (and I feel a bit weird about my therapist seeing a part of my boob, but I'm sure he wasn't focussing on that part). He says it's huge and major and a great step forward.

I like my therapist.

I head back to the office to meet a colleague for lunch. I click on my Blackberry, as it's the only working email I have on me, what with the fried PC. I see two emails that pretty much immediately piss me off, and I decide: Hmmm. Today may be the day where I switch off and decide that I don't fucking care about these people anymore.

So I did.

I have lunch and then head home, only on the way home I have to stop by the gym and sign-up. I figured I could just ignore the annoying yoga posse and enjoy the programme. I signed up. I got into the car (the red Swedish shit-mobile car, the one we don't care about).

And this is really where it all turned to hell.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I heard a bang. As there were no other cars around me, I figured it was just some exterior noise or me hitting the curb or something, and I kept driving. Only once I got about a half mile I realized something was wrong with the car. I pulled over and got out.

I had clearly hit something with the side of the car-it was something hard and solid, so I think it was a bollard (once of those concrete thingy-s designed to keep you off the grass.) It left a nice dent in the side of the car.

And it had fucked the tire up.

I groaned. I know how to change a tire, I just hate doing it. My Swedish ex taught me how to do it as in Sweden you have to have summer tires and winter tires, and with two cars it went faster with two people. I got pretty quick at changing tires, and while it's a grubby job, at least I know how to do it.

Only I didn't know how with this car. I rang Angus in London.

"I have a fucking flat," I said.

"Do you want to hang up and call Jim? He should be at home, he can come fix it," he said, referring to one of our handyman neighbors.

I got affronted. "I can change a tire," I retorted. "I just can't find all the necessary kit in this car."

So he walked me through finding the various kit. I jacked up the car and got the socket wrench out to take the lug nuts off.

And then I realized I had a problem.

This is an old car with old wheels. The lug nuts looked fucking soldered on, there was no way I'd be getting those off. I tried and tried, and even stood on the arm of the socket wrench to try.

It wouldn't move.

I couldn't believe it-I might have worked out where all the kit was and how if functioned, but I wasn't strong enough to get the lug nuts off.

A woman walked passed me. "You're so clever, figuring out how to winch up the car!" she called to me. "That's a very good girl!"

Oh my god.

The jack, that's not the hard part. Why does pumping a lever make me clever? A fucking monkey could do that, I don't see anyone calling them clever.

A motorist in a BMW pulls over. "Need help?"

I cave. "Yes please. I can change a tire, I just can't get these lug nuts off."

He parks and gets out. He works the socket wrench and jumps on the arm of the wrench-this miraculously starts loosening them. He loosens all five. "Try not to make it look so easy!" I laugh. Truthfully, I'm pissed off with myself. I should be able to loosen lug nuts. I can do anything a man can do (except that climbing up a ladder bit. I'm terrified of ladders. But then most women can do ladders, too, so that doesn't count.) I hate feeling like there's an element to being a woman which precludes me being able to change a bloody tire. I'm a feminist! I can do anything, except provide a sperm sample in a cup (but if I keep eating all this protein the way I am, I'll be able to pop one of those out soon, too!)

"Oh thank you," I say seriously. "I really appreciate it. I can change a tire, I just couldn't loosen those lug nuts."

I head for the spare, which is under the car. He joins me. We look at the spare-it is held in place with what it undoubtedly the most complicated device in the history of spare tire holding devices. Neither of us can work out how to get the spare tire off.

I finally find a hidden flap in the car which, by rotating a nut with a wrench, winches the spare tire down on a cable. We do this. While we do this, I babble, as I am prone to do.

"This car is sucha heap of crap, we don't care about it. I don't know what happened. I can change a car tire, honest. I'm no damsel in distress. Do you like Tang? Tang? Remember Tang?"

We finally get the wheel free and he replaces it for me. He looks at the jack.

"Well, you got the car raised up ok! Very well done! Good girl!"

OH. MY. GOD.

I bite back a response to my Good Samaritan, and resist the urge to repeat for the fifth or sixth time that I can change a car tire, as I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. I feel really, really dumb-I can change a car tire, me needing help has nothing to do with the mechanics of it. I'm not a pussy, I can get my hands grubby and fix the problem.

Only I couldn't.

The truth is, I wasn't strong enough to get the lug nuts off. I needed a man's help to do that. And it really pissed me off that I needed a guy to do that, because I had Wonder Woman Underoos as a kid, it meant I have super human girl powers, I can lasso a pegasus and deflect enemy rays with my wrist guards and change a goddamn tire.

When we finish, I thank him about a million times, inform him that I'll notify his scout trip that he has indeed done his good turn for the day and offer him some water from my ever-present bottle of water to clean his hands. He gratefully accepts. He rubs his hands together and I dash to the car to find something he can dry his hands on. I see a T-shirt of Angus'. I grab it and head toward him. He starts reaching out for the T-shirt....and a pair of Angus' boxers, which had been rolled up in the T-shirt, fall to the ground.

He looks at the boxers.

I look at the boxers.

He looks at the T-shirt. "I have a rag in my car, I'll use that instead," he supplies.

I pick up the boxers.

I head home, where by the time I get there it's past 5 pm and I've not done very much work at all. I am grubby (two showers later and I still can't get the grease out of the folds of my fingers) and annoyed and I wonder if someone from the gym will chase me down for bollard endangerment (although Angus says they also have enormous planters holding flowers on the curbs there, he bets I winged one of those).

Little wonder why I failed my first driving test.

I felt so annoyed, and it's still biting me today. Lindsay? Lindsay are you here? Got any blow job comments that will make me laugh? Add an Elf reference in there and I'll be your best friend?

Tang? You want some Tang?

I'm a true Muppet sometimes.

-H

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January 30, 2007

If you cut me in half, these are the first 9 rings you can count

So life has a lot going on for me at the moment, but I did find one interesting thing-I spoke to my Dad recently and found out he didn't have any pictures-at all-from my childhood. Not one. He recently raided his mother's stock just to be able to say he had a photo.

These things happen when you divorce. Someone always has to lose custody of the memories.

Anyway, I have one photo album from when I was a kid, and I dug out that album and scanned some of them in so that I could send them off to Dad. Angus and I use a service called Photobox which works pretty well-you upload your order and get the prints within 2 days. As we want to get some prints from the Seattle/Canada holiday to my dad, we figured we could scan in some prints of my young 'un days and get them to him, too (but only up until about age 9, because after that the looks go downhill fast for most of the pubescent and pre-pubescent years. Seriously. I know we all go through a phase where our limbs look like they don't fit and our hair echoes of some bad 80's teen TV show starring Nancy McKeon and Sarah Jessica Parker, but I dwelled in that phase a lot longer than most. It ain't pretty and it certainly isn't going public.)

This might bore the everloving shit out of you, but someone once asked if I had any pictures of me as a kid, and...well...I do. You might look at them and wonder what the hell happened, how did I go from being a cute kid to the bus accident that I am today, and my only response is that everything I learned I learned from TV, so perhaps there's your answer.

I was born on the first of April, 1974. According to my mother, at the time I was only one of two babies in the nursery. The other baby was a black baby, and this being the Deep South (yes, I was born in the Deep South), it meant I got held the entire time by the three nursery nurses and the other baby apparently didn't (and this still makes me sad today as it is honestly hideously unfair and wrong on so many levels. I wonder what happened to that baby. I'm sure he's actually the well-adjusted happy-go-lucky adult today, I'm facing the bad karma.)

Here's me and my dad (whom I think looks like a thug in this pic, but what can I say, he was just a kid himself) and a cool Bakelite-looking TV hanging on the wall.


We all come from somewhere.


I was a pretty easygoing kid, being all ok with playing with a pair of old flip-flops and everything.


Little girl lost


We soon moved from that place in the Deep South to Lubbock, Texas. This was a mistake for many reasons:

1) It was Lubbock, Texas
2) It was Lubbock, Texas
3) I was exposed to Cujo


Cujo


Cujo won. It was an ugly battle, really.

I've said before that I was a clumsy git and that's true-if I could break it, it would get broken. Thanks to the pancake-flat Asian profile I inherited, I would walk into walls and wind up with black eyes. I did this a lot, actually, and any other number of things, like look behind me while running and playing tag so that I completely and utterly missed the bench in front of me and tripped over it, sliding on my face.

It sure made for a banner "use Helen on the Christmas card" year.


I tripped over a bench and slid on my face.


Most of my pictures are from McChord AFB in Washington. Here's one of me and our former family dog, a loving and absolutely wonderful Sheltie named Tigger. Tigger was the perfect family dog, although sadly he did not protect his family from an attack launched by macrame.

There were no survivors.


Hardly a rescue dog if he can't even protect against macrame


I told you I grew up Catholic and I wasn't dicking around (oops, sorry God.) I maintain the mantra of Catholic guilt but the rest of it is gone. At least I got to wear a tiara once in my life, even if I never wore one for any weddings (mine or other women's that is.)


Going to the chapel and I'm gonna get First Communionized


Oh my god those shoes. Those shoes. And it was definitely before Labor Day in this picture, so I was really giving the finger to fashion here.

And the final picture is, I think, a real tribute to the fight against misogynies of today's patriarchal societies. From a tender and fragile age I embraced the slogan of the solidarity of women and the compelling need of the empowerment to which my sex require. You'll be happy to know, Ilyka and Genni, that I embraced radical feminism from a very early age...


Practicing radical feminism at the tender age of 7.


...all in the guise of Miss Piggy, and while surrounded by a sea of pink.

I never said I was perfect.

-H.

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January 29, 2007

I'm gonna go downstairs, finish my drink, walk her to the car, and I'll be back at the hotel in about a half-hour. I'll see you there?*

Dear Southern Family,

Hi there!

How're you doing?

I'm doing really well actually, but then you know that. I've noticed that-despite your promises to the contrary-you continue to read here. I must say I honestly find that very strange-why would you want to do that? I'm not in your lives, you're not in mine. Why bother keeping tabs? What are you worried that I'm going to say?

Anyway, I just wanted to drop you a message that if this site upsets you (which isn't my intention) you can stop reading, you know. I haven't written about you for ages actually, and it's probably best-even my therapist thinks that we aren't good for each other right now. The thing I'm learning about family is that you can have it without demanding that people choose their loyalties like a cheap high school football game.

This blog is my therapy (along with my real therapy). I'm getting better. I'm getting much better. I think I am going to make it through life after all. I have never, in my entire life, been happier than I am now.

So I hope you're all well.

I am.

-H

PS-I love my dad. I love my stepmother, too. And in case you were feeling angsty about that, the truth is I'm allowed to do both.

*Grosse Point Blank

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January 26, 2007

Epiphany, Courtesy of Mrs. Roosevelt

Today was a rather busy, rather rough day. I didn't have time to post this morning, as the schedule had too much on. So the blog got neglected as the daily life, she took over.

This evening over a glass of bubbly I made dinner for the house (squash and gorgonzola tart.) I was reading a book as the tart baked (as you do), while Angus rebuilt the PC downstairs (if you've sent me an email, I can't reply to it, as the downstairs PC has given up the will to live. I can read, just not reply.)

There in the book was a quote I had never heard before.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

And I felt sucker punched.

Like with the rolls I get in therapy each week, this quote was the core to the pure humiliation, the second class feeling, the embarrassment I often feel for just being in a single space that anyone else may be in.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

It made me feel a rush through my head, and after Angus put ink on my skin, I went upstairs and captured my 365days project.

After the day I've had, the work battles I'm having, and an icky chap linnking me in Flickr (whom I've now reported), it was what I needed.


A Message From Mrs. Roosevelt Made Me Whole Today


(Yes, it's the bottom half of my boob. Not that exciting, trust me.)

I sometimes think I am not alone in thinking and feeling the way I do. That as a whole, we should be done with feeling small and second. It's time for us to stop feeling like we are less than the world wants us to be.

The truth is, we are enough.

Enough. For every family member that made us feel unimportant. For every colleague that made us feel insignificant. For a lover who made us feel like they were the best we could get, who made us feel grateful for whatever scraps of love they sent us, scraps that would never be enough to thrive on. For every person in every queue in every hot moment that tried to make me feel stupid....enough.

One quote helped me find my courage again, one quote made me look in the mirror and think: Fucking hell, it is enough, I am just fine. I am thin enough, I am fat enough. I am pretty enough, I am ugly enough. I am career driven enough, I am nurturing enough. No one else gets to define me but me, not anymore, from here on out. It's not about "if I don't love me, nobody else will." It's that I need to love me, because I am allowed to deserve things. We all are.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

No one has my consent anymore.

I am enough, and I'll scream it to the world if I have to.

-H.

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January 25, 2007

You Use That Chicken Brake One More Time And I'll Show You What the Term "Hissy Fit" Really Means

This morning was Driving Test Thursday, aka "Sweet Jesus If I Don't Pass This Time I May Become an Alcoholic" Thursday.

So I woke up at oh-Fuck-Me Hundred to have a one hour practice before the test, which was scheduled at 8:40. Blearily I took a shower and had coffee and a bowl of yogurt and granola while examining the arctic tundra that was the weather outside (I exaggerate-there was a bit of frost, it was just cold out. Too cold. Cold enough to make me want to cancel my test and my London meetings for the day). I tried to wake the hell up and tried to remain calm-this was round two of my driving exam, and I have to pass this thing by May as that's when my theory test certificate expires-I really don't want to have to take the theory again.

La Mole (what I call my driving instructor) turns up at 7:40. I am mostly awake by this time, and feeling rumblings of both boredom and dread at having to do the driving test. I am not feeling so confident about my driving-failing one test and a massive blow up about driving with Angus over the Atlanta long weekend we had in November hasn't helped. Said driving blow up repeated on the long drive to Whistler from Seattle, and I am generally feeling pretty crap about my driving abilities these days. So no-I wasn't looking forward to the test.

I get in the car for him to tell me that he forgot his stick-on rearview mirror (a must for exams, so the examiner can see behind you) and we would have to swing by his house. So we drive to his house in the busy morning traffic, and he has me wait in the car while he runs in to get his mirror. I debate turning on the radio and blasting it on some rap music for him to enjoy when he gets back in the car, but I decide I can't be assed.

We then drive around and "practice". This is the worst part for me, mostly because I've been driving more than half my life now and have determined bad habits-we all have habits. Trust me when I tell you that I only know of one person that drives the way the driving examiners want us to drive, and that person is in his 70's. If we drove the way the examiners want us to, then we would simply stay home as it's just too much of a pain. It would end the problem of the carbon footprint we leave behind. Pollution would screech to a halt and leaves would grow out of our rusting automobiles. We'd all be on bicycles, or at least until they instigated bicycle examinations, then we'd all just stay home for good and have a lot of sex.

We then try to do some "procedures". On the exam they have you do three of five procedures:

-reverse into a parking spot
-reverse around a corner
-parallel park
-three point turn
-emergency stop

I never, ever reverse around a corner. I don't know anyone who does. This seems to be fundamentally flawed in the safety area to me, but then what do I know, I still haven't passed my test.

And today my maneuvers are horrible. I'll all over the place. I go up the curb on the reversing around a corner. My parallel parking looks like it was done by a 90 year-old woman who basically decided to park her car in the middle of the road. I reverse into a parking spot ok, but it took me a fucking ice age to do it.

And above all that, I keep exceeding the speed limit.

This is a change for me, as typically I drive too slow.

I'm a grandma in thirtysomething clothes.

La Mole asks me to try parallel parking again. So I pull up next to a silver Ford and prepare to parallel park, him talking all the time. WHAM! goes the car, as it shudders and stops. I look at the steering wheel.

"Your car is broken!" I exclaim.

"No it's not, I used the brake," he replies, looking into the sideview mirror.

Oh my god.

Oh no you di'unt.

He chicken-braked me.

I haven't been chicken-braked since I was 15. I was extremely annoyed and rage a bit: Chicken brake me? I'll show YOU a chicken brake, goddammit...You want me to stop, just tell me to. Say it, don't splay it.

By the time we get to the test centre, I'm dreading it. He looks at the empty lot and asks me to reverse park. So I head to the opposite side of the parking lot where there's lots of space.

WHAM! goes the car.

He chicken-braked me again.

Mother fucker! my road rage mind screams. You touch that chicken brake again and I'll come unglued in ways Alexis Carrington only dreamt about!

"I want you to park on this side," he explains.

So I reverse into a parking space and pass that one, albeit I am a font of smoldering rage.

We go inside and sit down-two other young men are taking the test and their instructors are sitting with them. We sit and nervously chat. I pop a breath mint (it can't hurt) and have a cup of water. Soon the door opens and an instructor pops his head in. He starts talking.

It's just noise to me. I can't understand a word he's saying. It's as though my American to British translator device has broken. I recognize that these words he's saying are words in English, I just can't make any sense of them. Everyone in the room is nodding and taking a slip of paper he's handing out. I look at La Mole.

"Where's my examiner?" I ask in a Homer Simpson-like stage whisper.

The others look at me in the room with a look of pathetic awe, as though they're wondering if I'm learning how to park my short bus.

"There's no test, Helen," La Mole explains calmly, as though he's afraid I have emotional damage. I don't, but if he uses his fucking chicken brake again I might do. "They're cancelling it due to ice."

"But there's no ice out," I say stupidly.

"They think there is," La Mole says, continuing to translate for me. "They'll call you in a day or two to re-schedule the test."

Right.

Well, at least I didn't fail today anyway.

Didn't pass either, but I didn't fail.

-H.

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January 24, 2007

She'd Be the Punk Ass Bitch in Juvie

We woke this morning to a blissful carpet of snow outside, and so naturally (being the wound up children that we are) we had a satisfying shag and then took pics of the snow (our first snow in our new (ish) house!) I was due to be in Lower Buttfuck for 9 (Lower Buttfuck is not quite as far as Upper Buttfuck, but nearly as much of a pain in the ass to get to) but I blew that off as I made coffee and felt good about the day.

Then I logged on to work emails and got into it with The Little Man, whose name is rapidly changing to That Fucking Wanker. I was so infuriated that the dog got shouted at and my already limping laptop was nearly winged across the room. Copious amounts of caffeine and one angry email to my seniors telling them that I basically want off this project later, and I've decided that work emails should wait a while.

So I'm here (after apologizing to the dog, of course.)

Yesterday was Maggie's 7th birthday. This might not seem like much-a 7 year-old cat is not going to break the record books, it's not the world's most earth shattering news, but I note her birthday every year on my calendar. We do not celebrate pet birthdays in this house-I might be a softie, but that's a little too soft for me. While I accept someday I may be the crazy cat lady, subscribing to presenting the cat with a cat-nip laden cake is a little too close to that for me just now-I have 30 some years to get to that stage. We also don't give each other Father's Day and Mother's Day cards signed by the pets-although Angus' ex used to do that, I like to think that I didn't squat down and ponch out a slithering slimy mess with four legs, so he's not getting a card from Maggie, Mumin and Gorby (although I do call myself Mama to them, and he does call himself Dad to the pets, but there's only so much anthropomorhizing a person can do here.)

Maybe you remember (on the day that I entered what feels creepily like cat blogging) when I discussed Maggie's issues. Maggie is a rescue cat, and she is a difficult cat. She always has been. Even as a kitten she was like a wild animal, never wanting to be held or touched. I recently found the one picture I had of her as a kitten-here's her three months old, and looking pretty spacey.


Young Maggie.JPG


As an adult, I think she's often struggled. She's a real cat-if she so deigns to lower herself to your level, then you will be allowed to pet her. She may periodically sit on your lap but you have to prepare yourself for the moment she will decide your lap is no longer the place to be-the back claws come down to help with the jump, and if you are unsuspecting then you will pay a price.

Maggie was really my ex's cat-they had a mutual understanding that his lap was her space, my lap was Mumin's. Maggie kept my ex company when he had his glass of whiskey by the TV. They got on, even as Maggie never got on with anyone.

When Angus and I moved the cats over here, Maggie was the one who nearly died. Mumin, being the incredibly lazy, dozy figure that she is, buried under the pet pads in the kennel. Maggie, being ever the wired one, fell asleep above the pet blankets and nearly froze to death (important lesson there-never give your pets tranquilizers before a flight. Nearly everyone does but the vets now tell us that 30% of the animals who are knocked out die from hypothermia. Apparently the altitude is a soporific in itself, skip the drugs.)

And now today.

Maggie is the cat that sits in the bathtub and drinks from the tap. She's the one who likes to sleep with us (and is allowed to from time to time, but not all the time as she's not a cat who's conducive to the rest of the inhabitants of the bedroom sleeping.) She's the one who likes to take my tampons and play hide and seek with them.

She's also the one who was struggling.

A move, a dog, and a bad run-in with a kid left Maggie not coping very well.

It's always the bitches who can't adapt.

(I know this, as it takes one to know one.)

While Mumin and Gorby get on like a house on fire and sleep beside the radiator, getting up all wonky and dozy from the heat, it's all much too Holly Hobbie for Maggie-if Mumin and Gorby would be the ones who walked across country to find their family, braving hardships and starvation in search of love, Maggie's the one who would've shrugged at our retreating figures, uttered "Bitch, please", and found herself a nice old folks home to habit for food, in the hopes that most of them would die before getting too attached to her. Maggie's the loner. Maggie marches to her own beat. Maggie doesn't sit around talking about her feelings.

Maggie is the real cat in this household.

Maggie is also the one who's been suffering. Afraid, angry, abrasive, and hostile (betcha' thought I'd have another "a" word there, didn't you?) she's been difficult. I debated vet visits. I debated medication, but I knew that was a one-way ticket to a lifetime of meds. I worried that her future wouldn't be too long.

So we took action.

Maggie was probably feeling insecure, we decided to shore up the securities. The upstairs was purely Maggie's zone. Maggie was only to be sweetly talked to and loved upstairs. Angus' kids were advised to not go near her. Angus and I would make sure we spoke to her in soft tones. Our bedroom was really Maggie's personal sanctuary-when guests came over we shut her in our bedroom, and I'd go in from time to time to stroke her and talk nice to her.

Soon, she became so comfortable upstairs that she stopped flying at people.

It was a start.

When Christmas came, we shut Maggie in the bedroom with admonishments that she was not feeling well and not to be disturbed. I was ready to take the hard line on this one, too-being Mean Auntie Helen would have been fine with me if it meant Maggie would be able to keep getting better and better.

The upstairs being a Maggie zone brought more rewards-Maggie sits on Angus' lap in his study upstairs. She wanders around upstairs at her own lazy pace, feeling secure. Angus also started putting Maggie outside during the warm summer for a few hours at a time-she hated it, but the exercise did her good and she seems much fitter and livelier now.

And now Maggie seems to be fine. She even joins us downstairs in the evenings, occasionally venturing onto our laps when she's decided it so suits her.


Maggie downstairs


She's such a whore.

(Takes one to know one.)

She's not healed but she's better. She'll never be the cat that hangs on you limply, a pool of purring goo-she has Mumin to do that. Maggie is the real bitch, a true cat, but I love her madly and I am glad that she's feeling better, and more secure.


The Maggie Cat


Now back to The Fucking Wanker.

-H.

PS-Don't worry-I'm not initiating Cat Blogging Wednesdays or anything like that.

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January 23, 2007

Doctors Surveyed Say One Out of Five Reenas

Yoga is the activity where former high school suck ups graduate to.

I've decided this.

Step aerobics is where the ex-cheerleaders wind up. Let's face it-only former cheerleaders would be able to tolerate that kind of environment-"And one! And two! And right! And left! Keep going, that's excellent people! Woohooooooooo!" Step aerobics was made for ex-cheerleaders, I attended one class and vowed never to go back, not just because I'm the most un-coordinated woman known to mankind, but also because extracting the pom-pom that spontaneously grew out of my ass was pretty difficult.

Treadmills are for the ex-student council folk. Secretary? Former treasurer? You'll be on the treadmill for over an hour watching Sky News and tracking the ticker on the bottom of the screen. God help us if you're the ex-president-you'll be on the cross trainer for about 6 hours, pushing yourself on the hardest possible setting and tracking every burnt calorie.

But yoga is where the old kiss-ups gather. It is also the proving ground for those who graduated from the Drama Club, after that fabulous production of Lil Abner that their class did (You can almost hear them- And wasn't it a hoot that Lil Abner was still able to run despite being one of the most politically incorrect shows ever? Wasn't that cast party the bestest?) Yoga is a single gathering place for Those Who Have Holes In Their Security Complex.

And I do love me some yoga.

I dropped out of yoga almost a year ago, when we went to New Zealand and the Cook Islands-we were gone over three weeks and when we came back, we moved into our new house. The work load included in that move was incredible-ripping out carpets, sanding down floors, painting every room…it was clear that the gym wouldn't be utilized for some while, and add on to that the IVF cycles-about the last thing in the world you want to do while going through IVF treatment is bend over. You get so swollen and sore that someone could throw a £50 note in front of you and you'd just leave it there (or use your freakishly long toes if you're me.)

But Angus and I have sworn to lose weight this year (and we've each lost over 3 kg already (that's almost 7 pounds) and more to go) and he's joined a gym. I've been ferrying between meetings a lot and haven't joined it myself yet, but I went for a power yoga class on Sunday. This was my first yoga class in about 11 months. I had been desperate to try power yoga for ages, and it turns out Angus' gym has it. So I suited up and went. I was a bit ass backward about it-I thought that power yoga was the same as hot yoga, or kundalini yoga, which I've been dying to do. Turns out power yoga is the bog standard ashtanga yoga I'd been doing (along with hatha yoga, or what most people think of as "normal" yoga).

And dear God-the kissing up went to whole new levels.

I thought Reena was bad (remember her?). I thought that Reena was about as awful and painful and sicky sweet as it got. I figured Reena was a one-off like a calf born with six legs, or at least some kind of anomaly, like that one bad kosher pickle you get in a jar of precious Vlassic. I would be wrong on both counts there.

The new gym is sparkly and bright-it looks like a city loft on steroids. Walking in to the ladies' changing room, I run into two women wearing tiny, tight fitting workout outfits. They are the walking, talking definition of hard bodies. Their stomachs went for the value 12 packs, leaving the 6 packs in the dust. I immediately knew that they would be in my yoga class.

I wasn't wrong on that one.

In the yoga room everyone is wearing very little clothing. Now, in kundalini yoga, this is what you're supposed to do. In ashtanga and hatha yoga you wear loose-fitting clothing and bring warmer clothes with you for the cool down and meditation. So there I was in a tank top, spare sweatshirt, and yoga pants. I was dressed like a grandma compared to most of the room (apart from the instructor, who apparently wanted to shield the wider world from the ghastly vision of her pale winter flesh as much as I did.) I took a space in the back of the room, as I find starting new activities in new places to be pretty stressful, and I don't like calling attention to myself (this despite me being a kiss-up in the drama club in high school. What can I say, I was desperate for approval and acceptance. I'm in therapy. I'm al over it.)

But where there is yoga, there is a Reena.

Or in this class, there were five of them.

The Hardbody Twins naturally took two of those spaces. The Hardbody Twins made me feel insecure, as most people with good figures do. This is why it's best I don't work in LA or anything like that, it's a pretty slippery anorexic slope for me. I was later exposed to the Hardbody Twins in the dressing room-their undergarments were mere triangles held together by pieces of string. My Kleenex has more material on them than their bras and knickers do. I was reminded of the recent size D issues I'd dealt with a number of times.

There were also two other hardcore devotees-their bodies weren't perfect and their forms were pretty crap, but they didn't care. They were in the front row, they had constant contact with the instructor, and spending time around them made me wonder if I'd have time between fifth and sixth periods to dash to my locker as I forgot my chemistry book. I was exhausted with the high school feelings.

The worst of it was-for once-a guy. There was a guy in the class that I swear would have been the most perfect Mr. Reena ever. Before class started he was whipping his body around into contortions, naturally clad in the tightest of shorts. When class started it just got worse-ashtanga uses ujjayi breathing in between the poses (which are constant in motion, and in between them all you do a pattern of moves called a vinyasna. This is maybe all too much info for you, but just imagine this pattern of moves, and by the end of the class the pattern of moves has you so tired you might pay people to do them for you.) Ujjayi breathing is done through the nose, but you have to close your throat a bit, so that at best you sound like a Sleestack, at worst you sound like a can of shaving foam. Mr. Reena and his ujjayi breathing were so loud that I wondered if I should offer some Sucrets to Darth Vader-the sound of his breathing drowned every single sound out. I debated asking him if he'd had his adenoids out yet, or if that was something he should explore.

And when the instructor asked for a demo of the headstand (which I cannot do, never have been, never will be able to, and frankly I'm ok with that) she looked to Mr. Reena.

"Mr. Reena," she started (he had a real name, but it's immaterial to me), "If you could, please show the group how to do the headstand."

"Absolutely," he laughed. "but it's hard!"

"Oh you can just do half of the pose, that'll be fine."

"No no!" he shot back in a panic. "'I'll do the whole thing! I can do it! The whole thing'll be fine! Watch, I can do it!"

Jesus Christ on a Pop-Tart. Would someone give this guy a cuddle already, help him work out his issues. Or at the very least, then YES let's confirm that we'll watch him come down the slide and then he can shut up already.

He goes into the headstand in a way that I wasn't familiar with. It's clear he's in his element. This is his big moment. Nothing makes him feel as close to the spiritual one with the world as all of us watching him. When the rest of the class starts their headstands, I shrug in the back of the room and start it off the way I was taught-I can't stand on my head anyway, it's not like this is a big deal.

"You were taught the other way," remarks the instructor.

I stand up and nod. "Yeah, sorry."

"No that's no problem. Instructors are different!" she smiles.

Mr. Reena stares at me and my mutant fish white body. "I don't know how to do it that way," he says with a sneer.

Oh yeah, cupcake? You probably don't know how to suck dick like I do either, but you don't see me giving you grief about it.

And there you have it. I may or may not return to the class, although I feel the need to start up exercise at a gym again. I always thought that one Reena was enough. Emotionally, I think I'm too old to deal with five of them.

-H.


Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:27 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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January 18, 2007

Day Two of Boobiegate 2007

The drama continues.

You may be tired of hearing about my breasts by now (and if you are, how about we talk about miscarriage? Or therapy? Don't make me pull over and bring out the Elf DVD because I will!) but I continue to deal with them. Not just because they're somehow attached to my chest (in my head I hear a Spanish voice explaining: I wake up one morning and poof! Boobies is attached to my chest. I don't know. I don't know why it's a Spanish voice, it just is.) but because I was pretty screwed up about the 32DD episode.

If you've been reading my site for longer than, oh, five minutes, you'll know that self-confidence and I are pretty much constantly engaged in combat. While I am ok with my intellect and all right about my social skills (for the most part, anyway), I battle with my self-esteem with regards to my looks on a constant basis. This is despite my narcisstic stream of Flickr photos which star me, myself, and I, but that's for a photo project, not because I think I am the shit. In all honesty I think I am perfectly ordinary looking with loads of flaws (this isn't a subtle nudge for you to jump in and tell me otherwise, because that's not where I'm headed here. I think I'm ordinary. It is what it is. Now the Spanish voice is gone from my head and all I hear is Popeye.)

Being told I was a DD put me right back to where I was as a troubled teenager-someone bouncing between "big-boned" and "anorexic lite", the flaws always being pointed out in subtly caustic ways. I became the champion of my own damage and in my mind a DD eclipsed the work I had been doing in trying to be ok with myself. I'm not saying DD isn't gorgeous, because most women truly are. DD is a glorious size. But for me, DD is where I came from, not where I wanted to go back to. I think I'm like a cicada, and with each life I shed, I am trying to get to the middle of what I'm really supposed to be.

That, and since I got fitted I've been checking out other women's baps trying to ascertain what their sizes are, and sometime soon it's going to get me punched so I need to get this sorted.

So I exchanged one of Angus' Christmas gift bras on Tuesday and today I needed to exchange the other. I went to a different shop and decided to get a re-fitting, not because I wanted to get felt up, but because I couldn't settle 32DD in my head. The fitting room attendant-a really kind woman-called another woman whose sole purpose in her working life is to measure mammary gland collectors, and without further ado I was stripped to the waist in a fitting room again.

And again, I babbled.

"So I got fitted earlier this week and I just can't believe the size they gave me, a 32DD. Can you believe it? I can't believe it. It's so windy outside. Ever seen a skunk? I know there are no skunks here, but maybe you've seen one. Or not. Not like you smell like one, and neither do I, I was just thinking about skunks."

"32DD?" the woman replied, her eyebrows disappearing into her widow's peak. "Not a chance."

"Oh thank you," I replied, calming down.

"You're way too big to be a 32," she added, adjusting her own lima bean-sized rack, as though making sure being so close to an over-performing boobinator like myself wouldn't infect her perky little girls.

I stared at her and thought: Oh thanks. Say, while you're down there, how about picking up my ego when you're done wiping your feet on it?

She zips the measuring tape around me. "You're a big girl, a very broad back. You're at least a 38."

OH MY GOD.

A 38?

I start panicking.

"That can't be right. I was wearing a 36, and I wore that on the tightest setting," I say in a pleading voice.

"Well, all I can say is you look to be a 38. I'd go 38 C. You're quite large," she says, smacking her lips together and exiting. I watched her leave and thought: One day, I will meet you in a dark alley with a jar of marshmallow cream, and I will make you eat every last bite you WHORE.

Right.

I now felt even worse than I did when I was now pronounced Mrs. 32DD.

I slowly put my clothes on and feel terrible. I've gone from small frame to Big Bertha. Not that 38 is Big Bertha, I'm not saying that, I just can't figure out where I'm supposed to be. Suddenly I am knocking cats off of beds and swaddled in bandages all over again. And in myself, I know that I personally am a shape that I recognize and am ok with most of the time-Angus and I both gained weight over the holidays, but both of us have since lost that weight plus some thanks to some hard core dieting we're both doing (healthy, though-we're being healthy.) We've joined a new gym and are both feeling better about ourselves and the dwindling number of the scale.

I decide I'm not ready to go back down that path of self-hatred just yet.

Once back amongst the bras, I resolve to think for myself. Maybe I don't have to be a 32DD, and I don't have to be a 38C. There has to be something that fits me somewhere in between. So I grab a range of sizes and march back to the dressing room. It takes me ages, and my ribcage is scratched and raw looking from all the lace as I'm one of those who simply cannot do up my bra at the back-I have to hook it frontways and then circle it round the ribcage to get it on.

And I found a size that I feel fits me perfectly-when I tighten the straps I feel more secure and strapped down than I think I ever have done before (with the exception of a sports bra, whose sole purpose in life is to beat those bitches down.) I turn in all directions of the mirror. I try on several styles. I find that I have to be careful-some styles make this size in what I call "Wind Sail" variety, where Robinson Crusoe could've just strapped my bras on to the mast to set sail. In one style, I find I am a different cup even (a C). I think from now on, I'll have to try bras on before I'll know for sure.

But hi.

I'm a 34D.

And I'm mostly ok with that.

On my way out of the dressing room, the first woman (the nice, I-don't-eat-Teen-Miss-magazine-for-breakfast woman) smiles. "Did you find the right fit?"

I smile back. "You know, I think I did."

"Oh that's wonderful!" she beams back. And I find that I agree with her. It is wonderful.

-H.

PS-I'm also taking Ilyka's challenge, mostly because she's Ilyka, but also because I think it's important that we bow down from self-degredation once in a while and appreciate ourselves. Feel free to join in-sometimes we just need a reminder of what's right in our worlds.

So. Five things I like about myself:

1) I have very, very long legs. Years before I learned how to grow into them, it was a bad thing. Now, I love that they are long and go on for ages. I don't care that it makes sizing hard for me, I love my legs. Honest.

2) I think I give good hair.

3) I like the shape of my eyes. A wee bit Asian, unusual color, and they turn up at the corners.

4) I have the recessive trait in that my big toes are smaller than the second and third toes next to them. My second toes are so long they're nearly fingers. I use my toes to pick things off the floor constantly, and I don't care that they're unusually long-I think they're cool.

5) I have very long, very thin fingers. It is one of the few graceful things about me, but I think that they look oddly elegant, even if they're not supposed to.

My five things.

Maybe someday soon I'll include my rack on that list, because I'm beginning to believe that a size is just a size. But that rack of mine? In the killer bra and saucy knickers I got today, they're going to be something else in the privacy of our bedroom this evening.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 12:46 PM | Comments (21) | Add Comment
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January 16, 2007

One Way Ticket To Dollywood.

Around about 15 years ago I had breast surgery. IÂ’m not remotely embarrassed about this, itÂ’s one of those things about me, like the fact that I am bendy and have lots of freckles. It just is.

It was hard being a chick in a body like that. I developed on the same scale as everyone else, only one day they stopped and I kept going. I used to be a lifeguard in Arlington at a place called Wet & Wild (I know. I know. As an adult I realize how hideous a name that was. ItÂ’s now called Six Flags Water Park or some such nonsense). Anyway, said water park provided us with red bathing suits, a la David Hasselhoff and Pammy. I remember day one of the lifeguard training-I walked out of the dressing room clad in my requisite red bathing suit. I joined the others.

And everyone stopped talking to look at me.

This isnÂ’t me being paranoid. It really happened. People stopped talking and checked out my rack. I know this because a friend asked me in a stage whisper if they were real or if IÂ’d gone a little mad on the Charmin stuffing.

They were real.

I had enormous knockers, man. Really big. They were so large I stuffed myself into a 38DD, because that was the biggest size that VictoriaÂ’s Secret had. ThereÂ’s no way I wouldnÂ’t wear VictoriaÂ’s Secret. I had a big set but I wasnÂ’t going the big girl route.

It was the day that I swung around to pet my cat and knocked him clear off the bed that I knew it was time the boobs had to go. I can still see it in slow motion, my mouth an “O” as the sheer momentum of my baps picked up speed, and as pi = 99 red balloons and things fall at 8m per second squared or some such relevant physics shit, my shoulders had stopped moving to face the cat but the rack went on to pass go and collect $200. The feline never knew what hit him (I do, it was purely mammary).

I went under the knife not long after that. Insurance picked up some (I truly was suffering back and shoulder damage from their sheer size, honestly) but the rest got paid out of pocket. I was hospitalized for three days with tubes slowly pulling out bloody oozy infection on either side. When I was finally allowed to unwrap and take a look, I was shocked-theyÂ’d told me IÂ’d look like Frankenstein, I just hadnÂ’t realized how Frankenstein-y theyÂ’d really be. To put it into scope for you, the basics are this-I lost the entire bottom two-thirds of both of my breasts. The nipples were cut off and re-sized (big breasts come with big headlights) and re-sewn on in the space that a nipple should roughly be. I was told that my nipples would never be sensitive again, but since they never really were to being with, I figured it was no big loss. I was told that I would never breastfeed as I had no mammary glands now, but that too was ok-breastfeeding makes me squick. The good news is, except for water weight, my breasts will likely always be the same size from the day of surgery on, and they will likely not sag, as the surgery helps prevent that. I will have strangely perky boobs until I die, the only 80 year-old in the home with a bouncy rack.

And I started to heal. First thing I did (after 6 weeks of wearing sports bras to help heal, of course) was dash to VictoriaÂ’s Secret. I bought tiny shelf bras, demi-bras, little things. I figured out what size I was and have been a B cup since then. The scars went from raised to flattened. They faded from angry red to pale pink to the quiet peach color they are today. I am proud of my rack, but I have to be honest-sometimes, I wish the surgeon had cut more off. Really. I never want to face the days of the big boob again-some women pull it off with stunning bravado, and I am so amazed by them. Me, I donÂ’t like people looking at me (ironic, seeing as I have a Flickr page), and my smaller breasts please me. To be honest, I donÂ’t even wear a bra unless IÂ’m going out of the house, as I find them uncomfortable.

You might me asking why IÂ’m telling you all this.

IÂ’m getting there.

For Christmas Angus bought me two gorgeous panty and bra sets. I loved them, they were perfectÂ…except the size. IÂ’d told him to get me 34B, but when I tried them on they were much too small. So I trooped to the shop today to exchange them. I got off the escalator into the land of Naughty (I love lingerie, I really do. I need to be more of a girly girl and get into matched sets more.) I walk up to an assistant and ask her if they still have this particular pattern (and here I show her the small set) and she leads me to them.

“What size are you looking for?” she asks.

“A 36B,” I reply.

She looks at me. “No,” she says firmly.

I startle. “What?”

She continues staring at me. “There’s no way you’re a 36B. We have a sizer in store, we’re going to sort you out,” she says, firmly leading me to the fitting room.

I have never been sized in my life.

I feel weird.

I go into the fitting room, and a polite fitter asks me to strip to my bra and sheÂ’ll come in and measure me. I do that. When she pulls aside the heavy velvet curtain to measure me, I start babbling, in the incompetent way I do when IÂ’m nervous.

“My boyfriend bought me this lovely bra, but it doesn’t fit. I’m not a 34B, I think I’m a 36. Do you remember Tang? Tang? I used to like Tang, but I don’t anymore, do you?” I babble.

“You’re certainly not a 36B. You’re not a 34 either,” she says, tape measure whipping over my rack. “You’re a 32.”

“HA!” I shrilly laugh. “Not likely!”

She looks at me kindly. “You have a small frame, love.”

”Yes, if I’m standing next to a brontosaurus!” I retort.

She measures more. “I’ll get your right size, I’ll be right back,” she says, sweeping out the door. 32 indeed. I haven’t been a 32 since I was 12. No way am I 32.

She comes in with a bright pink lace bra, the kind of thing I’d never buy. “Try this, it’s one of our proving samples.” She hands it to me. It’s a 32DD.

I freak the fuck right out all over the fitting room.

“NO WAY AM I A DD!” I panic. “I’ve been there. I have those puppies removed. I was a 38DD, and I’m a DD no more!” I shriek. I feel like I can’t breathe. I am right back to where I was 15 years ago, cursed with a rack the size of Mt. St. Helens.

"I'm fairly sure you're a 32DD." She replies.

"Are you measuring me in metrics? Using horse measurements, maybe? Because the girth of my ribcage can give National Velvet a run for it's money."

She smiles kindly. “You have a very small frame, but your breasts are round and high up. Your surgeon was good. You were a 38DD, but it would hang off you, completely empty now. The surgery may have removed part of your breasts, but the shape of them remains.” She tries to soothe the savage Helen. “Try the bra and just let me know.”

I am near tears. I canÂ’t be a DD. I canÂ’t be a 32. I just canÂ’t be any of this. Porn stars are DD. The old useless Helen is DD. New Helen and her boobs cannot be that big. I try on the bra and call her in.

“See!” I nearly howl. “I have bat wing boob coming over the side. It’s the wrong cup and size. This doesn’t fit.”

She smiles kindly, and adjusts the straps. With two smooth motions, the boobage bat wings disappear. The cups are filled with my girls.

The bra fits.

“You’ve never been fitted, have you?” she asks softly.

I shake my head. “No, never in my life,” I reply. “This is horrible. I’m a 32 DD. That’s enormous.”

“It’s not so big, honest,” she replies. “It’s about the shape of your breasts. DD doesn’t mean you’re huge, it means that you have round breasts. 32DD is a great size. I would love to have breasts like yours,” she says, gazing at my baps.

OK, now IÂ’m uncomfortable.

She holds up another bra. "I brought a 32E as well, in case the 32DD didn't fit."

Fit? FIT? E is not happening to me. E is porn star material*. I steady an even gaze on her. This is the proverbial straw. "Don't even come near me with an E, unless it's the kind that makes me randy enough to take on a bar full of sailors. There's no way I'm going E. Thanks for trying."

So I exchange the bra for a different set (turns out they donÂ’t have the set Angus bought me in 32Sweet-Jesus-Those-Things-Are-Big). I take them out with me. I now have bras I have been fitted for.

And I feel really freaked out by it.

-H.

PS-I did buy the 32DD. Angus and I both wonder if the DD is a big too big, that maybe a D would've done it-I'm going to get re-measured Thursday to see if this is the case or not. A 32 is snug, but maybe that's how bras are supposed to be. I'm depressed.

* I do have a fantastic porn star name though. You know the rule-you take the name of your first pet and the name of the first street you lived on? I'm taking the first ones that I can remember anyway, so my porn star name is Maxie Hemlock. I think that's a killer porn name. I dare you to try to beat that one.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:54 PM | Comments (41) | Add Comment
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January 15, 2007

I Got My Technicolor Back, and Now I Need a Map

Sunday, while wrist deep in dirt, it came to me.

Not the answer to "When are we going to be done gardening today so I can shower and stop feeling so fucking crusty?", and not "How many digits of pi do I really know?" (I know 3.14159. That's it. That's really more than I need to know considering pi and I cut each other off our Christmas card lists a long time ago.)

Sunday, while ripping bushes out of the front garden (we have become like the Faye Dunaway of greenage we are so anti-green-the previous owner had ferns and bushes everywhere, and we are fighting back against the green now by ripping it all out and planting massive fields of colorful flowers), I had to sit back on my very muddy heels and realize it. "It" being the following-at some point, I figured I would feel a shift, a change, an actual turning point. I always reckoned this turning point to feel like I'd put the back of my heel on a tarnished 1960's penny and swung around and faced the other direction. I always hoped it would be like this. It would feel weird-I'd lose my balance for a moment, and my perspective would shift completely as I faced a new way. It would be a different view, but more importantly, it would require the use of sunglasses.

The future being so bright and all.

And sitting there, gently re-planting the earthworms back in the ground and sitting on my heels, I thought back to the visit we'd just had to Seattle. I thought about the little house on the little lane that I outgrew. As I thought about it, images came back to me. I remembered playing with sheets drying on an outside clothesline. I remembered walking through the trees on my way to school. I remembered picking blackberries and squishing them between my fingers.

And in my remembrance the blackberry stain on my fingers was a deep port wine color.

It was in color.

I smiled to myself.

The memories may be of no consequence, they may not shed any light on what went wrong inside of me, of why I became so profoundly fucked up for the entire duration of my life, but my memories were no longer flickering 8mm black and white images. Everything came in a gently faded color now, maybe that color from a gently washed square picture that we had in the late 70's, maybe that color looked like the intro to The Wonder Years, but color was there.

I thought about the pale peach color of the dress I wore walking to school. I remembered a pink bedspread. The dark blue of some Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls I wore popped in to my head.

I thought about where I am in my life now-I had a magical holiday that included de shiny shiny on my left hand, which I stare at a thousand times a day still. I thought about the bouncing barking maniac dog currently chasing garden smoke in the back garden. I thought about the house we live in, and the improvements we've made on it and are still to make on it. I thought about my lovely boy, whose eyes still (after all this time!) light up when they see me. I thought about my therapist, whose guidance has sunk in, whose voice I hear in my head when I start to trip down unhealthy paths. I thought about the darkness I'd had in the past Autumn (Autumn-why is it always Autumn?) and how it's largely passed thanks to crying and trying and people and a little silver bracelet. And I thought about my father, who rings me constantly on Skype and whom I love hearing from every single time.

And after all that thinking, I felt my heel on the cold shiny surface. I felt a slow, easy swing and my ankle moved to the right and made the penny turn. It happened just like that, just like I thought it would, just like I hoped it would. I swung my hands out to keep my balance and by the time the turn stopped, I hung them back down by my sides again, still firmly on that coin. I looked around and didn't recognize the landscape-the grass was green and the daffodils so yellow they made my gums sore. Everything tasted like warmth. This wasn't where I was. Where I was consisted of grey 8mm screaming. This was new. This was in color.

I don't really know where I'm headed to next. It's not like the fucked up disappears overnight, from what I understand I'll be much like an alcoholic the rest of my life, always fighting the temptation to slide back down into the scale that I've spent most of my life in. I know that I am far from suffering the darkness-I might be re-learning my behavior patterns, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to try to pound the box into the round peg. I know that there will still be darkness. People like me, we don't get to think we're above escaping. Bad things are ahead, there are things that will hurt terribly, there will be times that I will think I am broken and struggling again. But what it does mean is that I now know is that it doesn't always have to be that way, there is an end to darkness.

There will always be an end to darkness.

I trust myself, my family, and my life to know that we can get through it. I can get through it. And I can do it without hurting myself and everyone around me.

I sat there and grinned like an idiot and relished the feel of my heel on that 1960's penny. I think I'll keep my heel there for a while, just to remember, just to know that I came this far. In my head, I stood there with one foot on the penny (must exfoliate, while I'm at it). I looked around and realized that the world was in color, gently faded color but color all the same, and that I needed a new map to get through it all. I'm pretty scared, actually. I don't know where I am, but I know I worked hard to get here, and I'm going to make the most of it. I'm not leaving my penny just yet, but I will, at some point. I wonder how the grass feels.

I can almost imagine it.

In reality I stood up and brushed off some of the dirt. I went into the backyard to an apple tree-pruning Angus, and I hugged him and told him of my new view. He told me he was happy for me.

I'm pretty sure I'm more happy for me.

I'm never happy for me.

It really is a new view.

I'll send you a postcard so you can see it for yourself.

-H.

PS-thanks to those of you who came forth last week and the week before and said hi. De-lurking is pretty scary, I know-I seldom do it. But thanks. And nice to meet you. And see you same time next year, yeah?

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January 12, 2007

So, This Week, You Know? It's Been Long. Real Long.

I just spent the last three days in a business conference in the southern part of England, working crazy hours-Wednesday I put in a 17 hour day, then got 5 hours of sleep, then put in a 12 hour day yesterday. This is after Tuesday, which was a 13 hour day then 5 hours of sleep as well. Hang on, I'll get the abacus to work this one out...right, so that comes to 42 hours of work in three days, when the work week in the UK is 36 hours. Plus I worked Monday (OK, I sort of worked Monday. I was low on the commitment scale, I admit). This means I am totally getting the blue ribbon for the "Trying Too Hard" award.

So today I logged in to work but I'm all about the term "half-ass" today. This after being away from home three days and spending a lot of time going toe to toe with that evil dickhead project manager I am still arguing with, the one who henceforth I will refer to as The Little Man, as seriously-he maybe comes up to the underside of my boob.

I admit I am a tall chick.

Still, boob undersideage is not a good sign.

The Little Man was one of the hosts of the conference and yesterday at the end of the conference he announced he would have the project plan to 90% completion by the end of the week which he would then start to manage. This wound me up no end, as The Little Man had just spent three days ignoring those of us who were actually working during the conference by doing his emails and acting important. What did I do at the conference? Me and my team built five business cases AND wrote a several hundred line project plan for this fucking project, and I will own that plan like Halle Berry owns the Oscar for working the cleavage.

So yeah.

I'm pretty tired.

The conference was about as much fun as having Andre the Giant administer a pap smear. In Antarctica. With a toothpick.

I'm back to really hating my job again, too, which is a bad sign.

Today will be a calm day, I hope. I have the book club tonight with the ladies and this weekend is going to be handed over to doing something about that tangled mess known as the garden. One thing has become clear in our beautiful new home-neither of us are gardeners. We are both pretty clueless. The garden-which was a selling point in the beginning-is something I can't be doing with, especially when it's cold and raining outside and I have 6 episodes of CSI on SkyPlus that I haven't seen yet.

Priorities, people. Priorities.

On the family front things are progressing. Angus gifted my dad, stepmother and Nobu with a headset, a webcam, and a Skype installation (in Japanese on Nobu's computer) and we hear from them often. Since we got home less than a week ago we've heard from them 3 times already. I love it, and my dad is wowed about being able to see us via the webcam from an ocean away. He's got Skype on his laptop now and we bought an HP Ipaq while in the States which we're planning on using when we travel, so we've installed Skype on it, too. This means we're always all able to get in touch with each other (as my dad stubbornly refuses to give up his CDMA phone for a tri-band GSM or a GSM/3G one to use when he's in Japan). We swap photos back and forth. We call often. It's like we're the Walton's, if the Walton's ate Tomkatsu and used chopsticks.

I am very happy.

On Angus' side it's been a little bit different-both of his brothers were delighted at our engagement (which made me grin as I like both of his brothers a lot). His Dad and stepmother had a weird email response-they gushed congrats but they're on holiday for a while in August, could we advise them of the date of the wedding? This put my back up a bit-it made me feel like we had to be so kind as to schedule a wedding around their holidays-but Angus spoke with them and assured me I had the wrong end of the stick. Apparently, they're just really keen to come to our wedding, so they want to make sure their diaries are cleared.

OK then.

My upped back went down again.

And then there's Angus' mum.

She and I had a contentious beginning-I was the other woman, the guilty party. She had, of course, been through that herself when her own husband left her for a younger foreign woman. That situation was slightly different-her husband fucked off and he and his new partner had very little to do with Angus and his brothers for years whereas Angus and I try to get his kids as often as we can, there will be no disappearing act here. Also different is the fact that Angus' marriage was fractured before I came along, (although I certainly didn't help matters). Time has passed though, and I think his Mum and Stepfather both like me now, even though from time to time things come out badly.

We sent her an email late Sunday thanking her for a wonderful Christmas, telling her we'd just gotten back and-guess what?-we're engaged! (Before you think this is bad etiquette, this is a normal way of relaying information in the family. They email in the evening, and then usually the family members speak early evening the next night to review.)

We got a read receipt from her the next day.

We got felicitations in the beginning of the email

Then: "So congratulations are in order."

Then a paragraph about taking some friends to the cinema and their experience.

That is all.

And I felt taken aback. It was completely sidestepped I think. I talked to Angus about it, and he agreed. In fact, we can feel her discomfort from across two counties. Angus says that she doesn't handle change well, and that this will cause her conflict in her loyalties to Angus' ex-wife. I say that this has nothing to do with his ex-wife, this is about us. His ex-wife (whom we are both currently furious with for a number of reasons) has her own life, Angus has his. We wouldn't have gotten engaged if we didn't feel it was right and if we didn't know that his kids would be glad about it. The truth is, I know that his Mum is upset-she's an incredibly loquacious person, there's no way she wouldn't bend our ears about this if she were ok about it. A one-liner shows that she's not happy. And I know change is hard for her, but I think I have proven that I have Angus' and his children's best interests firmly at heart.

I am probably reading too much in to things. Angus says we'll give her space and deal with her when she's ready. I feel deflated and am taking it personally. I try to brush it off and instead look forward to talking to my family.

-H.

PS-I am advised that this week is de-lurking week-I remember de-lurking week a year ago-so much has happened, and yet I remember the kind responses to this day. So even though a lot of you popped your head over the parapet last week for the announcement (hi!), now's the time to de-lurkify, please

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:11 AM | Comments (52) | Add Comment
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January 09, 2007

Yeah. You Know, You Really Can't Go Home Again, Mostly Because It Doesn't Fit Anymore

You know how in the movies people who have been away from home a long time see the front porch of their house and get all misty? Like, someone is waving onion fumes at them the minute they see concrete steps and-as the swanning orchestral music swells-the hero/heroine puts their fingertips to their lips (because we all always do that) and says: Oh my God, I can't believe I'm home again in a fragile and shaky voice? How going back home is almost always a cathartic and beautiful thing?

Yeah.

Sometimes it's not.

This isn't about visiting my dad, stepmother, and new grandma (whom we've taken to calling Grandma PoPo around this house as she's extremely cool and very Japanese, so the word "purple" comes out "popo". I digress.) My stepmother said that we should tour our old home when Angus and I got there, and so we did.

When I was 4 years old my family moved from Lubbock, Texas, to McChord Air Force Base, which is right outside of Tacoma, Washington. These were still the military years for my dad, so moving every 2 to 4 years was the norm. McChord was our family home from 1978 to 1982, at which point my parents divorced and my mother, sister and I found ourselves living in a little hole in Iowa (and that is definitely a digression I don't want to talk about.)

Gig Harbor is not far from McChord, so off we went in the car to see the place we used to call home.

And my God-I can't believe how small it is. You know when you go back home and you see the place you grew up in and you think: Jesus, when did this place shrink? This place was huge! Or maybe you did grow up in a huge place, it's just me that comes from humble origins, I dunno.

We drove onto the base-my father is retired from the military, which means he still has base and military privileges. I remembered virtually nothing from the area-for some reason I could remember the house number and how to walk to school, and I could remember the pond in the backyard and where my best friend (the other Helen, Helen Sqaured) lived, the friend that I'm pretty certain wound up walking down teenage pregnancy lane and now smokes 2 packs a day and covers her furniture in naugahyde, but of anything else? There was very little.

My memory, though...my Swiss cheese memory. It always lets me down regarding the past, especially concerning the younger years. My brain had a hole in it and the memories just leaked down my back, making a small sweat pool around the band of my neck. These years, specifically these early years-they don't ring any bells. When I think of those years I feel instant embarassment, I feel my hair long over my brow, I think that I will never grow into who I need to be. It was in this time period that I started to understand something was wrong with me, I was broken in some place that no Miss Piggy Band-Aid could reach. I didn't fit, something didn't fit, and with my typical tenacity, I clung to the different as a way of staying sane.

I maybe make as much sense as a bookmark made of green beans, but maybe you get my drift.

My family was stellar going with me. It's not like I was freaking out (because I wasn't), but my Dad and I talked about memories. It's nice being the one to be able to reminisce for a change. When I'm around Angus' family and I constantly hear stories about people that I will never meet. When Angus' is with his best friends-some of whom he grew up from infancy with-I feel completely out of the loop and sometimes dive into my imagination to amuse myself when the talks go on and on. This time I got to talk about my past, and my Dad tried to piece in logistics that had escaped me.

When we got to the street I had lived, I remembered nothing.


My old street


I remembered the house number, but I couldn't have picked it out if I tried.

Then, my Dad pointed it out to me.


A childhood home


I wouldn't have recognized it-the color has changed, for one. When I was a kid I remember it was a blue-grey color, the color of a bird's egg, the color of the angry sea sky. Now all the houses are a muted yellow, a calm color, a color that makes it hard to figure out which is which if you don't live on the street. I couldn't believe how small it looked, but maybe that's because I'm now all grown up and able to reach the cupboards in the kitchen. I wondered if that's the place where we wrote our names in the top of the closets, to try to make a stamp on the place, but then I think I'm getting confused with Colorado and the military paints after each occupant, anyway.

A few things came back to me-a tree had blown down in the front garden while we lived there, and missed hitting the house. My mother grew roses in the side garden. I had run around in the backyard in the summer, and one summer a trap door spider came up out of the ground and bit my heel, scaring me. I tried to fry an egg on the sidewalk once (that was a failure.) The sky went dark when Mt. St. Helen's blew up in 1981.

Many things were a complete blank.

Not really a surprise.

What was a surprise was my old school. I started kidnergarten there, with a mean bitch of a bag called Mrs. Pratt, who liked polyester and had huge clip-on earrings that looked like cherries. She was always mean to me, and was startled when she found out that I had been helping another girl in the class learn to read, as I already knew how to, had done since I was 4. It's not that I was particularly helpful, it's that the other girl was as hated as I was and we knew we had to band together. Strength in numbers, really. Even when you're 5. Like Childhood Normandy.

My old school, which also had a really cool teacher named Mrs. Altman, one who somehow hits the corner of my mind as someone that tried with me. I was very high energy and probably very hard to control. I also was hard to get through to, although I worked very hard to earn praise.

Wow. About as pathetic as a frat boy at a palace reception.

Anyway, the school was also very, very tiny. I remember it being a maze of hallways and covered walkways, in my memory it spreads the length and width of an entire city block. The truth is, it's maybe as big as a few houses.

And it's also now closed.


Helen and Heartwood


You don't think of things moving on like this. It's not like the world has to hold still if you're away or anything, I know that (see: Lucky Charms. See also: Trix.) But it's a bit sad when something's not only moved on, it's left completely.

Oh well.

Maybe I'll never get the memories back, and that's ok, I think they won't fit anymore anyway, much like how you could never get the pantyhose back into the L'Eggs cup, no matter how hard you tried (and don't tell me you didn't try, we all tried, it was part of the mystery). Things grow out of us just as we grow out of them. My therapist will probably be glad I went to the house and the old school. And honestly, so am I-in general I feel much better happier in myself.

When we drove away, I wondered just a bit about my humble beginnings, and where I am today.

I felt gratitude.

I felt sadness.

I felt ok.

-H.

PS-many thanks to absolutely the coolest geek I know.

PPS-and a late thank you (I am a dozy cow sometimes) to Larry, for the DVD with the holiday inspiration.

PPPS-my email is behaving most whorishly these days (or actually, it isn't-instead of being provocative with Amazon and Ebay emails, it's withholding from me. It's a mail tease.) so if you have sent me a mail and haven't heard from me, it's likely because my email is a Victorian prude. That, or because I'm a dozy cow. I'm working on both. I'm also heading in to a three day off-site conference this morning, and that won't help, either.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 06:48 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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January 08, 2007

The Best New Year a Girl Could Ask For

Hi.

Right.

So....how was your New Year?

Because mine? Mine kicked some clown ass, my friend. But you maybe already know that (and many thanks for your comments last week).

We left bright and early on the 27th, having dropped off Gorby at the kennel (I'm to pick him up in about an hour or so now) and dropped off the kids at another terminal for their flight back to Sweden. Heathrow was a zoo. Honestly. We were herded into massive tents outside with many others, and at some points the tents were so packed you couldn't even move. This was Heathrow's way of handling crowd control, and I can tell you-even with that many people in one plastic awning, the lack of heating was evident. When we finally got inside the terminal it was calm and easy-we checked in, went to the BA business lounge, and relaxed. The flight was great-we had used Angus' miles to upgrade to business class, and we quickly got stupid on champagne and crashed out on our poshy seats.

When we landed, we were met by my father and stepmother, who both bore huge grins and a luggage trolley. Our luggage came out first and we zoomed to their home across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, on an island called Gig Harbor. There we were met by a happy Nobu (my step-grandma, so to speak), and an awesome view of the harbor and Mt. Rainier.


View from the back door


We had our Christmas then-it was fantastic fun and I honestly enjoyed myself. My family took to Angus even more-they'd already met him when they were here, but they really took a shine to him after he re-built two of their broken PCs.

We toured Pike Market with my dad and stepmother, which is always a great place to me-the seafood, the vegetables, the hustle and bustle of the place. I couldn't believe it-I even found a copy of this book, which I had as a kid and which I loved.


Pike Market


And we had fish and chips and clam chowder at my beloved Ivar's.


Ivars


Where my dad and I acted like 5 year olds feeding the seagulls.


Seagull feeding time


We left for Whistler on the 30th-my dad loaned us his Toyota Highlander, and we were very grateful. My stepmother packed us a massive basket of food to eat on the way, and we set off for Whistler bright and early. We arrived just about 5 hours later, and unpacked wearily.

We hit the slopes the next day, having rented skis and purchased lift tickets. Neither of us are great skiers, but we do ok-I've only been skiing 4 times prior to this, and Angus-although having counted up at least 14 weeks of skiing-hadn't been to the slopes since 1998. So we took it nice and easy on the 31st, tackling only greens. The slopes weren't at all crowded though, and we even had some runs to ourselves.

We were very happy.


The happy couple


Especially after having "courage juice" at lunch (half a bottle of red wine).


Giggly, and that's ok.


You can even see me skiing here, as Angus took a video of me coming down Blackcomb's 7th Heaven (a fantastic run). I'm not a great skier, so don't have too much of a go!

That night we got dressed up and went to a Bavarian restaurant for a big fondue dinner and some oompah music.


Helen at dinner


We ate far too much fondue.


Angus at dinner


Then we drank bubbly, watched Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve (what's happened to Dick Clark? And who the fuck is this Ryan Seacrest asshole, and why has no one killed him yet?) and passed out around 1230.

On the 1st we woke up feeling fine-not so most of the other folks in the hotel, who all had "Do Not Disturb" signs on the doors. We went to the nearly empty slopes, but had a short day of it-the snow came down hard, and we got soaked in spite of the ski clothes. We got over 20cm of snow that day, so we called it an early day. We instead enjoyed the snowfall in the lit up village, which was picture postcard perfect.


Whistler Village


The 2nd had very bad weather-it was actually raining, and only three lifts were open. People generally didn't even bother going up the mountains, and we saw people coming down who looked like they'd simply been in and out of the bathtub. With gale force winds, rain, and few open lifts, we decided not to ski.

And that day, everything changed.

We walked around the town, dodging the massive puddles. On our way to a lunch place, we saw a little jewelry shop to one side. We peeked in the windows, and we both saw a very unusual ring in the window-two bands linked by three diamonds. We decided to go in and look. We saw a few rings we liked in there-the place was unusual, not a chain, but a shop in which the owner bought pieces from local artists. Everything was unique, most of it extraordinary. Angus decided we needed to think and so we went and had a boozy lunch.

Suffice to say, we went back.

We nearly bought the unusual ring, but instead saw the one that I have today-a white gold band with two 2 carat diamonds, which are on either side of a 4 carat blue diamond. All of the stones are from Australia and are certified non-conflict diamonds, which is important to me. Angus made sure that we looked at every engagement ring in there-he's a traditional guy and likes rings to look simple and traditional. After trying to narrow it down between the two choices, we decided the blue diamond was so unusual it had to come home with us.

He bought it, and outside of the store, he proposed.

I think it's fair to say the proposal was a surprise to both of us, although I think we both knew it was in the cards for us at some point.

We giggled a lot, bought champagne, and I texted Statia, whom I later spoke to on the phone in tones only dogs can hear. Then my dad and I talked, and his and my family's explosion of screaming and congratulations could be heard all the way to Alberta. We drank champagne, had a burger (mine made of mushrooms) and snuggled up in bed.

The next day we skied-it was cold but brilliant. At one point, we even went through a massive cloud, which was scary but also pretty cool.


Cloud skiing


I couldn't stop staring at my ring.

Day 100 and a Great Celebration


As you do when you have a new sparkly rock, I think.

The last day of skiing was excellent-we had a great day and a full run from 9 am to 4 pm. We were so sore that packing consisted of chucking clothes in the direction of the suitcase and hoping it made it. We were actually extremely sad to leave-we had a fantastic time and loved our time in Whistler.

When we finally got to my Dad's (high winds and bad rains meant we spent three hours on I-5 just trying to get through Seattle) we found they'd decked the place out for an engagement party. I couldn't believe it-streamers, stars, a cake, fake crowns for us to wear, and some of Dad's friends came over for a massive feast (my stepmother is a stellar chef, so this was a great banquet).

Here's me smiling so big I think my teeth are eating my face.


The new couple


When we left on Saturday, my dad and stepmother used their airline passes to walk us to our gate. We'd said goodbye to Nobu at the house, and she told me she thinks of me as her granddaughter, which I find incredible and humbling. Saying goodbye to my family was hard-I love them very much and value our burgeoning relationship more than I thought possible. We did travel in style as we used Angus' miles to fly first class home. I know it was a one-time deal, and we acted like real Clampett's-they gave us pajamas to sleep in (the seats are a bed. A bed!) which have come home with us. As have one of the posh blankets. And a bottle of Kiehl's from the bathroom (what? It wasn't nailed down, of course I was nicking it). First class is a whole new world-you really do get a different service, but I am under no illusions that we'll ever be able to fly first again (although I will be playing the lottery from now on, just in case.)

And that's that. We're home. The house is a mess and the unpacking is mighty. We're both depressed about the full on week of work we both have in store for us.

But we're engaged.

And happy.

More later and I apologize for the disjointed tone of this blog post (which was so elegantly written it could've been done by an 8th grader), but man am I knackered.

-H.

PS-you can see some of the holiday photos here.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:38 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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January 03, 2007

We Interrupt the Holiday-Related Blog Hiatus To Bring You the Following Very Important Announcement

more...

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