July 31, 2007

The Hurricane

I remember seeing a TV show once - I can't remember which one it was - but it was set on a Caribbean island with the threat of an oncoming hurricane. Said hurricane was blustery, tragic, and very dangerous. The islanders, in the move that was either a pure myth or an act of courage, tied themselves to trees in order to face the onslaught of the violent storm.

That's kinda' what our house was like as we got ready to launch Operation Duck and Cover.

Operation Duck and Cover is what I called the point in which the ex-wife (aka, the one I call the Swunt) was informed about the Lemonheads. I think every single one of us knew it was going to be unpopular. It was without a doubt that I knew she would be displeased in one way or another-I know she wanted a large family and Angus didn't (and still doesn't). It's not like I'm tremendously bothered she's upset-while I honestly don't want her to be upset because she's an important part of Melissa and Jeff's life (and she's a person to boot), I do have a feeling that seriously-life goes on, whether we want it to or not, and often the "not" means that adjustments have to be made. It's also a little hard to feel too sympathetic to a woman who takes great apparent joy out of soundly trashing my name and Angus' to anyone who will even remotely listen.

Angus discussed at length with the kids about how to handle things. After my father and stepfather, the kids were the first to learn about the pregnancy when we were all on holiday in Mexico. Their reactions were overall very positive, if in need of a little bit of reinforcement and support, which we give readily. We involve them as much as they want to be involved in the new babies' lives. Jeff in particular is very proactive about the babies and fully plans on adopting his upcoming new baby sister (he says because this way he can "stop a little girl from turning out like his sister". Whatever his reason, I find it very touching.)

Despite the pressure from Angus' Mum and his nosy parker brother, he felt the only input he needed with regards to telling his ex was from his kids, as they're the ones who have to live with the ex. The kids and Angus agreed that the best plan of action was to tell the ex while both kids were over here in Scotland. This so that she could have time to recover and repair her emotions, if need be, and so that neither of them were in the eye of the storm. Jeff in particular is an extremely, incredibly, ferociously sensitive young man. You never know what it is that's upset him but things get into him and they go very deep, to the point where he goes off the rails easily.

Angus drafted an email. He asked for my input. I added some, none of it negative. We then had a draft of an email that we felt was as hurricane proof as our tin shed could be-it outlined that lives move on, that he wants nothing but her happiness and would never want to hurt her, that he will be a father again but no matter what Melissa and Jeff are a huge, incredible priority for him and nothing will change that, and that he cares about his ex's feelings and respects her. We readied.

Then, when they were here, we sent it off.

He got a calm, composed email the next day. The ex wanted more detail. She wanted to know who else knew about the babies. She wanted to know when the babies were expected to be here. She wanted to know where the babies come from.

The "where they come from" fucked me off more than anything. I understood immediately that she thought we were adopting two children from abroad. Angus didn't elaborate on that point as he felt it was none of her goddamn business "where" the babies came from. He told her that the babies were coming the end of October. He told her that the children and his immediate family had been told. He again said he hoped that she wasn't hurt.

Then we heard nothing. We started loosening the knots from our ropes binding us to the palm trees. The hurricane, it seemed, was just a blustery day.

Just as the ropes came unbound, Melissa and Jeff went home, and it turned out the hurricane was over on their side of the water the entire time. Because neither Angus, nor his family, nor I paid for it.

Melissa did.

And days later, she's still under attack.

Apparently it started as soon as she got off the airplane. True, it was an evening flight and the kids were tired so the moods couldn't have been brilliant, but Melissa said things were wrong from minute 1. I was in the hospital then but Angus started getting text messages from her, and things escalated wildly out of control.

The long and short of it is this-Melissa faced the brutal storm of her mother's anger alone. Jeff escaped unscathed, but Melissa's insistence that she supports her father, me, and the Lemonheads has made her life there a living hell. The Swunt is adamant that Angus should have rung her at the earliest stage of my pregnancy and informed her of it in order to "limit the trauma on the children" (her words, not mine). And the truth is, the children aren't traumatized in the least-trust me, we check on this aspect constantly. They're more traumatized by the upcoming extension and chaos that will cause their visits here than they are a new brother and sister. His ex is also furious Angus didn't consult with her on the engagement before doing so.

"Shall I call her to see if I should have decaf or regular coffee tomorrow morning?" Angus asked grimly, on finding this out. "Because I clearly cannot make a single decision without calling her to confirm my choices."

The incredible amount of verbal violence over there has been incessant. Melissa's now off-line at a horse camp with her mother and brother and has no mobile coverage. She and Angus had been talking very regularly and texting often, him trying to calm her down and tell her we are here for her. We spoke briefly while I was in the hospital. She told me how hard it was there, how her mother's constant abuse about the situation was never-ending, that her mother is now re-hashing every sin that Angus may have committed ever and is wielding those like verbal numchucks.

I am still working on this stepmother thing. It's not always easy, but it's part of my job now, and a part I won't give up on. The big part of being a stepmom that I battle with is you have to know what to say and what not to say. Somehow, this is done intuitively. Somehow, this is done by rote, so that you do not cut great swaths across a family.

I do not say: Your mother is a fucking mess. You did nothing wrong. This isn't your fault that I'm pregnant. It's no one's fault but my own, as I am regularly reminded of. I broke this. I broke all of this, everywhere. It's just me. She's being a selfish bitch who's blinded by pain and fury and although she has every right to feel pain and fury she has no right to take it out on you. She doesn't deserve to have you two. She paints your father to be an adultering bastard who left her soul to bleed but the truth is she leeched out his happiness a long time ago and when they split she took every friend and family member he had as her own. Tell her to fuck herself. Repeatedly. And I'll send you that lip gloss I found for you.

But that would be continuing the cycle. That would be yet another on the world's longest list of reasons for therapy, that's the women of my past and the women of her past sitting around the kitchen table, wrecking a 15 year-old for her own chance of being free from the cycles that just never end. I want to cave to the siren call of my vicious rage but I know the result would be disastrous. I wouldn't say these things to Melissa, no matter how angry with her mother I am. I wouldn't do it to her just as I look back at who I was once and wish I could be there for her, too. It all has to end somewhere.

"Babe," I told her softly, fiddling with the tubes on my IV and trying to keep my voice low and even. "Your mother's hurting. I know it's not right that it's being taken out on you, it should be taken out on your daddy and me, and it's misplaced anger. I once had parents who were often on the warpath with each other, so do you want some advice? If you can, just listen to her being upset without taking it all in. DonÂ’t let it get to you. Don't feel you need to fight for your daddy or me, because we know how you feel. She needs to get some things out of her and maybe she just needs to know you're there to listen because she loves you and she's hurting. Just let her vent, and even if you don't agree with it, don't let it hurt you. Do you want to try that?"

"I can try that," she said. "Maybe that will help."

I have no idea if it's helped or not. We won't hear from them for another two days. The last words we heard were that things were still bad.

A hurricane I can face. The winds, they don't bother Angus or me. We've been through it all before and will undoubtedly face it again-the babies will be born. We'll get married at some point. Melissa and Jeff will get married to their own partners at some point. The Swunt and I will have to face each other (at which point I will be tranquilized. And I will have starved myself to a size 6, so help me God, before that woman and I are face to face over a white wedding cake.) We can take a lot. But what we can't take is knowing that the kids are facing grief that they don't deserve, I cannot accept a child getting pain for something they didn't do. I get it that the ex is hurt. I know. I do feel bad. But more than that, I feel a white hot rage that she would take it out on her kids like that, and all I want to do is damage control, which is hard to do when you're on bed rest and they're at horse camp facing a category 5.

-H.

PS-Yup, I did finish Harry Potter. Finished the day before the hospital admission, in fact. More to come on that, too.

PPS-As ever, if you have something negative to say about the ex, please try to keep it constructive. While I'd like nothing more than a bitch session at a bar, it won't help Angus, who's the one trying to manage the situation.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:35 AM | Comments (33) | Add Comment
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July 30, 2007

Exhausted

I'd been struggling. Really struggling, like uphill salmon in the stream struggling. I'm prone to panic and depression lately as I try to figure out what's what. I'm over the moon that I'm going to be a mother but the overwhelmingness that is twins and the impact of twins has been taking its toll-financial worries, emotional worries, worries from a pure space perspective...it's all exhausting. Plus we had Operation Duck and Cover last week (more on that soon, but suffice to say that no matter how bad I thought it would be, the response far exceeded my negative expectations.) No matter where I turned it was darkness about the babies. Everywhere.

Even with me.

I had a minor meltdown Wednesday afternoon after the midwife appointment, when I couldn't answer basic questions. I have no idea how much to feed a baby. I don't know how to burp a baby. I don't know how to settle a baby and I don't know how to handle months of no sleep and if one more fucking person cracks a joke about how having twins means never sleeping agan I swear to God I'm going to hurt them in a very profound and permanent way. I was so overwhelmed I was drowning. The midwife pronounced the babies and I healthy and in good shape. Angus and I had a heated discussion, mostly because I'm in that "nesting" stage and not a damn thing has been done about their nursery, nor is there any sign of doing so, and it was such a priority in my head it was a neon flashing sign screaming "You don't know what you're doing, you dumb bitch!"

I was so tired of feeling so negative about absolutely everything.

A lot has been happening.

So on our return from Scotland on Wednesday (after the midwfie), we decided to take the kids to the movies with Angus' brother and his 5 year-old daughter. When we got to the theatre, I had to go to the bathroom, but unusually for me, when I got there nothing came out. At all. The entire movie passed (The Simpsons Movie, which I recommend) and my bladder felt so full I was going to burst. I rushed to the bathrooms after the film but once again...nothing.

I knew I had a problem then.

I told Angus, who conferred with me as we drove to his brother's house, where we were all due for a curry. We decided to bow out of the curry as Angus and the kids piled into the car and they dropped me off at our hospital, and Angus would feed the kids, settle them into bed, then come back for me.

Only he never got to come back for me. I was admitted on the spot, as by the time I'd gotten to the hospital I was passing blood, blood clots, and in so much pain I couldn't hold still. They checked my cervix and told me that the door, she was shut, and that the Lemonheads weren't currently on their way. But I was admitted because it was a real risk-the doctors were certain I had some kind of infection brewing, and in pregnancy infections can cause pre-term labor. They were so serious about it that I was promptly started on hardcore steroid injections designed to develop the Lemonheads' lungs as fast as possible, because there was a chance they would be coming.

On Wednesday I was 26 weeks pregnant exactly.

The babies are healthy and active, but they're not large. They're long and lean, but don't weight enough to have great odds. Their birth would have been a bad thing.

By 3 am I was settled in the maternity ward, in the antenatal wing. I was on heavy antibiotics. They gave me only paracetamol (Tylenol) to take. I spent most of that night on the toilet screaming in pain, passing blood clots with worrying frequency.

The next morning they took me for a renal scan. The doctors were convinced I had something wrong with my plumbing (wonder how they guessed.) My kidneys are squashed high up in my ribcage now, courtesy of my handbag uterus toting two little tykes. A scan revealed my right kidney was badly affected by hydronephrosis, a condition the doctors feel will clear up as soon as the babies are born and my organs re-settle where they belong. The hydronephrosis has resulted in a severe kidney infection.

Over the next few days, the kidney infection spread to cystitis, because misery loves company and because if it can go wrong, it will.

On Friday it all got much worse.

The ward was very, very busy. Women were going into labor everywhere. I stayed on the IV antibiotics and trudged painfully to the toilet often, hoping and praying I'd get to pee. The antibiotics weren't working fast-the strain of infection I have needed the one antibiotic I'm allergic to, so the alternate antibiotic was taking its sweet time. On the way back from the toilet I had a massive Braxton Hicks contraction.

But the contraction didn't go away.

I was soon doubled over in pain. I asked a nice midwife for some paracetamol and she said she'd bring me some. Before she could, two more women went into labor, and when the woman next to me started off for her C-section, a midwife passing by took one look at my face and then rushed to my side. By this time I was rolling around the bed in agony, sharp knife-like pains shooting up my back and my stomach one hard massive fist of uterus. I was surrounded by midwives as they swamped me with kit. My blood pressure was 145/100, a number that's extraordinarily high for someone like me who has very low blood pressure. The babies had stopped moving or I couldn't feel them through my steel trap uterus, I wasn't sure, but there was nothing happening in there.

I didn't know it at the time, but they rang down and cleared a bed in the delivery room for me. They were sure I was going into labor. I'm glad they didn't tell me that. I knew that the concern was I was going into labor, which again would have been a disaster, but I didn't know they were that sure I was headed there.

Then they got the monitor out to listen to the heartbeats.

They couldn't find them.

They kept trying. They barked orders for ultrasound kit. They passed looks with each other.

And I felt a kind of agony inside that I've never felt before, not ever. I'm a pessimist to the highest degree. I expect the worst to happen and I generally brace myself for it. But nothing in my whole tiny, insignificant little world, prepared me for the moment when the heartbeats of my children couldn't be heard. There is nothing in my little handbook of life that tells me how to handle that single moment when I learn that my children are gone. And there aren't enough synonyms to tell you how I felt in that moment, a moment which still seems suspended in time, and which will in the darkest of nights come back to me, unbidden, unwanted.

An ultrasound was found, and the babies were picked up. The one on the left - our daughter, the very active baby - had her heartbeat right away. She wasn't moving and was showing a high heartbeat level, but as I was in distress she was reacting to it. It took a minute to find our son's heartbeat on the scan, but soon enough they did.

And even though I was still thrashing on the bed in pain, I didn't care anymore. They were alive. That's all I cared about. It was as complicated and simple as that-they were alive. Nothing else mattered.

It transpired that the ureter between my right kidney and the bladder was now so compacted that stones were forming. The massive pain and symptoms I had weren't the babies coming early but of kidney stones coming. I felt incredibly stupid for the whole drama being caused over some kidney stones.

I've never had kidney stones before and I'd heard they were painful, but seriously? You know what I'd say about kidney stones? I've got one word. Motherfucker. Because that's the only thing that your brain can squeak out when those bad boys appear.

They broke out the party pack of grown-up painkillers, and for the next two days the babies and I slept through a haze of narcotics.

There are many things I will never forget-the kind smile and comforting hand of a midwife as she inserted a catheter on Saturday to help ease me. The feeling of alternating between fever and chill of infection. The resultant kicks the Lemonheads would reward me with when they heard other newborns on the ward. But one thing I'll remember is late Saturday, after Angus had left upon the closing of visiting hours. I hadn't felt the babies in a while, the drugs were making us all too drowsy, and I worried about them because if you don't feel them for a while you imagine the worst, so I got out my iPod.

There's a song I heard by chance when this IVF round started. I heard it and I listened to it constantly, as it's a sweet, calming, pure song that goes in one ear and right out the top of your toe, massaging every nerve in comfort on its way out. I listened to this song through the shots, the surgeries, the positives, the scans, the scares. This song has been with the Lemonheads since before their existence. I got the headphones and placed one beside one baby, one beside the other.

I hit play.

I heard the song myself as I watched the slide move, indicating the song was playing.

I waited.

And waited.

Then I felt it - a flutter from the left. A kick from the right. Mama, we're sleepy.

I smiled as the song ended, then plugged the iPod into my own ears and fell back asleep listening to the song.

My priorities have changed. The nursery no longer matters to me. The babies can have a crib in the study for all I care, maybe it's not painted, maybe nothing matches, maybe nothing looks perfect. It's not important. My "high-risk" pregnancy truly has gone high risk now, as although we're still working to clear my infections the hydronephrosis has me facing huge chances the infections will happen again. With infection comes the risk of pre-term labor. We really are at the point of counting down days, trying to get to a place of greater safety. From here on the babies will get scanned every two weeks as will my kidneys. I'm uncomfortable and in pain, actually. I'm exhausted and my body is in shit shape from fighting infection. I get tired walking from one room to another, and I breathe like a bulldog from the exertion of it all. I'll get better, I'm sure. As the infections finally go away I'll feel better and I will hopefully stop sounding like a pug dog.

And what's important to me is Angus' kids. And the Lemonheads. And above all, Angus himself (who busted me out of there yesterday and is taking care of me at home now). And everything else can wait and take a back seat while I bury my face in the smell of it all and inhale as deeply as I can. My feeling of being overwhelmed has blown over in a storm that consisted of electric beds, pink striped uniforms and needles. Instead I have a steady throb of greatest affection and of hope.

Many huge, huge thanks to Ilyka for being a fantastic guest poster and a great friend. I can never repay you babe. How about a round of applause for her?

Thanks for being great out there. Thanks for the well-wishes. Thanks for the support.

And thanks to the midwives out there, with their kind eyes and gentle hands. I appreciate you.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:34 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment
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July 27, 2007

In Hospital

That, I'm afraid, is where Helen is right now (as some of you may already know). She's okay, if by "okay" you mean "laid up with hydronephrosis secondary to a kidney infection." The doctors are weighing whether to do surgery to drain the fluid, but first, that infection has got to go.

The twins are fine as of this writing, but obviously this is an unwelcome development.

Helen, get well. We're all pulling for you and the Lemonheads.

UPDATE 29 July 2007: Just had an email from her with two whole words in it, but they were the right words: "I'm home." I'll let Helen take it from here, guys, and thanks so much for not throwing rotten tomatoes at me. You've all been heaps of fun.

Posted by: Ilyka at 09:36 AM | Comments (33) | Add Comment
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July 26, 2007

Two Stories

I don't feel as though I've contributed much during my time here (it would have been nice, for example, had I remembered when I agreed to guest-blog for Helen that I was going to be out of town without internet access for a couple of days during the same time she was absent), but luckily this is the internet and so I found a couple of pieces by others that you might like to read.

They are stories, haunting and somewhat melancholy stories, but beautifully crafted ones, and I don't think either will leave you too bummed out.

The Pond, by Chris Clarke at Creek Running North:

Gregory lived in the tall grass now, but Leah could not find him. She peered between the clumps of big bluestem, called him out into the rocky clearing at the pondÂ’s edge, but he did not answer her. Her right arm buzzed bright with pain, pink and fiery, concentric arcs where red metal had branded her the day before.

She looked for him among the cattails, their fat seed heads burst open and bleeding down. He wasnÂ’t there. There were only the cattail shoots and sedges between them, their stems bespattered with drying duckweed blown up onto them in last nightÂ’s storm.

Emerging Bones, by Theriomorph:

I was dizzy all the time and kept having this problem with all the oxygen in the world disappearing very suddenly and the concomitant sensation of a vacuum around me that imploded my chest and then I couldnÂ’t breathe and everything would go dim and fuzzy except the jagged violence of my own heartbeat which would grow deafening, aggressive, a crashing of horror and rage that dragged my vision down some long tunnel into tiny pinpricks of red, throbbing in irregular beat.

They call these panic attacks, of the Post Traumatic Stress variety.

This happened when I woke up from the dreams of pushing his dirt-encrusted tongue back into his mouth, or giant animals made out of metal crushing him at forestÂ’s edge, or searching for his killer on high hills and because I wasnÂ’t succeeding Shalom was fading from my sight and from the world.

Pop over, see if you like them. Both authors write rings around me, and yet it's impossible for me to hate them, because I am not really a writer; I am a blogger, and a reader, and oh, how I love to read a good story or two.

Posted by: Ilyka at 07:28 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Apocalypse Aftermath

I'm not trying to depress anyone, but I think I might actually buy this book, The World without Us, now that I've read the hype in Scientific American and viewed the timeline of what happens to New York City once you vaporize all the people out of it.

I am a fun person to be around! You should invite me to all your parties!

I can't help it. I find this stuff fascinating. Oh, but quick note before anyone gets on me about it: Yes, I'm aware that Scientific American is considered a lightweight science publication; start my boyfriend's physicist brother on the subject sometime if you have all day and nothing better to do. Then, for bonus points, mock him behind his back because oh sure, that lame Scientific American, so lightweight--yet he's written articles for FOX News, of all places, and since when is THAT outfit a respected scientific authority?

Anyway, this will not be a rigorous scientific analysis. Why do I even have to say that? Because it's the internet.

No, I'm really just fascinated by the whole "and then there were none" idea. No more us. I don't know why I'm fascinated by it; shouldn't it wig me out or make me a little depressed? After all, I'm not a nihilist, nor am I a believer in the Rapture. Humanity's destruction is not something I look forward to. I didn't mark it on my calendar with half a page of Strawberry Shortcake stickers and little hearts drawn in red felt-tip, you know?

I don't want humanity to go boom, but on some level I guess I accept that it's going to. We're going to. Nothing lasts forever, although speculation is that fragments of St. Paul's Cathedral could endure for 15,000 years after we check out. The Brooklyn Bridge only gets 300 years of post-humanity survival; the subway system, a whopping two days. Did you know they're continually pumping water out of the subways? It's true--they pump out about 13 million gallons a day. Cut the power to the pumps and WHOOSH, it floods quick.

I always thought of New York City's subway system as an astounding achievement (and it is, I'm not taking anything away from it), but it's also a very fragile thing, like so many other human achievements. And just as we often do with most human achievements, we focus more on how impressive the whole thing is than on how fragile, how temporary, how dependent on our upkeep it really is.

And never even mind New York. What's London going to look like a century after everyone's gone? Rio de Janeiro? Hong Kong? Ooh, I'll bet Hong Kong becomes a real mess. It all becomes a real mess for a long time after, while the earth struggles to clean up after us and rebuild herself. And then, just as the hideous giant cockroaches are forming a symbiotic relationship with irradiated barnacles, the sun expands and blows everything up for permanent.

This stuff used to depress me when I was little. I would get sad. "But I'll miss us," one-half my brain would think. "But you won't be here to miss anything," the other, more reasonable half would counter. "But someone should miss us." "Who? And why?"

That's a good question. Why should anything else on earth miss us? (Besides pets. Let's pretend, for the purposes of not having me start bawling right here at the keyboard, that pets get Rapturized or whatever at exactly the same time we do.)

Yet I think it would be nice if we were missed, or at least noticed, after our departure. Maybe it's irrational of me, but I find it cheering to read that bronze sculptures could last millions of years, maybe ten million. I want to say, "Artists! Commence working in bronze immediately! The giant cockroaches must have reminders of us. Sculpt us wielding mighty cans of Raid, sculpt us with one foot raised and poised to stomp, sculpt us with broom and dustpan, triumphantly dumping into the trash bin dozens of maimed and murdered cockroaches."

I don't mind so much that we go. It's the part where the giant cockroaches take over that bothers me. I just don't like those ugly little bastards to win anything, not even a used-up planet full of plutonium 239.

Posted by: Ilyka at 10:21 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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July 24, 2007

Where Are You From?

This was an easy question for me to answer as a child the first time we moved. It stayed manageable the second time. By the third time, however, this started happening:

"Where are you from?"

"New Jersey."

"You don't sound like you're from New Jersey."

"Well, that's where I'm from originally. I moved here from San Diego."

It went no better if instead of "New Jersey" I just said "San Diego," if you were about to suggest that.

"Oh, my aunt lives there! Do you know [something I would only know if I'd lived there all my life]?"

"Uh, no. We only lived there the last year and a half or so."

"Oh. Well, where'd you live before that?"

You can see how things got tedious in a hurry, right? more...

Posted by: Ilyka at 09:07 AM | Comments (33) | Add Comment
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July 20, 2007

Greetings from Your Very Apologetic Guestblogger

WAIT! Don't click off. At least let me say that I understand why you want to. I do!

I've been starting my Monday-through-Friday mornings with Helen's posts for four years now. Everyday Stranger is one of the few blogs I read where I honestly don't care what its author chooses to write about. I read Everyday Stranger because I like Helen, plain and simple. I like her writing style, I love her intimacy--you know what I'm talking about, don't you? There really is no substitute for Helen.

Hmm. Now I'm starting to depress myself.

I don't comment very much here, except sometimes to gush (over Helen) and sometimes to holler (at people I feel are being mean to Helen). I am good at the hollering. I had an email from a friend a few weeks ago that summed me up perfectly, though my friend was talking about herself: She said, "I come from a yelling family." That's me. I come from a yelling family.

Even the most obstinate descendants of yelling families, however, can burn out, and currently I am burnt out on the yelling. Besides, it's rude to holler at the regulars when one is a guest on another person's weblog. So be of good cheer! I have no plans to holler at anyone unless you insult Helen; and then, look out.

Oh, to hell with me! Let's just declare this a Love Helen Friday, can we? You can leave a comment telling me what YOU enjoy about Everyday Stranger (I know I copped out up there by more or less saying "everything," but I trust you will all do better than that), and that will be really nice for Helen to read when she gets back, right? I mean, I didn't tell her I was going to do anything like this. I just thought it up right now because my melatonin's kicking in (I keep odd hours) and my brain is checking out.

Plus, it'll really burn her enemies. (Oh, why must I always focus on the negativity like this? Do you think it's because I come from a yelling family?)

But I like the idea! I am making it official. It is now Love Helen Friday. Especially for you lurkers! Come out and show the love. Favorite posts you remember, her envy-inducing ability to give good hair, the zany Elf obsession--it's all fair game. I would normally add something here about how you should try not to say anything really gauche like, "Well, for one thing, I sure do love lookin' at her boobies," but I've read enough of the comments here to know that I really only have to worry about one or two of you doing that, and those one or two will probably be meaning it affectionately rather than all creepy-stalker-like; or so I hope.

Love Helen Friday is in effect. GO!

Posted by: Ilyka at 12:01 PM | Comments (49) | Add Comment
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July 19, 2007

I've Left the Key in Your Mailbox, and There's Extra Fish Food in the Cupboard

And now, without further adieu (what does that mean, really? Without further goodbye would be the literal translation, but isn't that pretty rude? That's like No I will NOT say excuse me before I leave the table, thank you very much!) we're off. To Scotland. Again.

Because we like it there.

Actually, Gorby's off to his exclusive bed and breakfast, Angus and I have a one night stopover in the Lake District before picking up his kids Friday morning at the Glasgow Airport (which should be interesting as you're not allowed to drive up to the airport still) then we head back up to the Hebrides and the Isle of Mull, because we loved it so much.

Melissa and I are both hoping to get a copy of the Harry Potter book while we're up there. We're both glad we're out of GSM, TV and internet range because neither of us want a Muppet to come along and spoil it for us (in high school we had to read A Separate Peace. I'll never forget opening the front page of my school-issued book and seeing the words "Finny DIES!" written in black marker on it from some joker who felt the need to let me know the ending. Thanks, needledick. Am sure you're working as a gas station attendant somewhere now, and you've earned that, mate. From that moment on I've hated spoilers.)

We've agreed to not tell each other a single thing about it. Although I read faster than she does, I get car sick if I read in the car and she doesn't, so she'll likely finish it before I will. We've also agreed that we will signal to one another that we are done with the book by using stock James Bond 007 phrases, which then we will know means we can discuss the book.

Complicated, but fun.

So a few days in Mull. Then a day in the Scottish Lowlands. Then a day visiting Angus' dad and his stepmom, who always completely exhaust me. Then back home in time to visit the midwife and set off the situation known as Operation Duck and Cover, in which Angus informs his ex about the babies.

Good times, my friends, good times.

As a special treat, a guest poster will be here while I'm swatting mosquitos swanning around the Highlands. Ilyka Damen, who some of you may have read, stopped blogging a month ago and I've missed her horribly since then. Seriously. Like, as in "miss Target" kind of miss so that should tell you what kind of longing has been occurring. The girl comes up with posts that amaze me and make me tremble with envy at her wit. She's graciously agreed to pick up the old blogging pen and come in, so she'll be posting here. She's not just a great writer but she's also a good friend - I love her and I hope you love her, too.

See you on Friday next week.

-H.

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July 18, 2007

The Missing Piece

Dog? Check.

House? Check.

Two Cars? Check.

2.5 Kids? Overshot that one, but Check.

Now what's missing...hm....what could it be...

If you said "Husband", well, ok maybe you have a point there.

If you said "white picket fence" though, you've caught what I was throwing at you.

(I know you might have come here for something angsty or something about the Lemonheads. Trust me, I have both. You might be angst or Lemonheaded out though, so I got your back on that one.)

Our house has been firmly enclosed by a massive hedge all the way around it, front and back. This has taken years of careful pruning and loving, loads of professional gardening assistance, and dedication to its survivial by the previous owners.

It only took Angus and I one year to kill off part of it.

We like to think of ourselves as not so much horticulturally incompetent, more like licensed to take our green thumbs and shove them up our asses.

The hedge in front of the house rotted and died. The massive drought last year didn't help. It caught some weird bush disease (and it's just not going to get old, that line. "Bush disease". Heh.) and then withered and died. We thought we killed if off but the neighbors tell us the previous owners accidentally set fire to it before they left, so the blame's not all ours.

Like any project we do, it takes a while to get around to it. Once we do get around to it, it is done to Angus specifications, which usually means it's done right, if not quite at Helen Speed. To be fair, Angus has been severely restricted by the hideous rain we're constantly having, so the slow progress is more down to the rain than any deliberation on our parts.

But one day, Angus decided he and Jeff were going to rid the world of the diseased hedges all along the front boundary of our property.


Yucky hedges

So they dug them up.


Angus and Jeff Digging


All of them. Stumps and all. And I wood-chipped them all and pretended I was in Fargo.


Hedges Gone


This of course slightly unnerved our neighbors, who wondered what the maniacs were doing digging up hedges that had been there for donkey's years and then feeding them to a wood chipper. In the rain. With an open view of all the neighbors. We assured them that in time-honored American tradition we were putting up a giant fuck-off metal gate, complete with CCTV cameras, intercoms, and wild dogs aimed at ushering intruders away (we're still working on that one with Gorby. Any day now he'll be a wild dog. Annnnnny day now.)

They realized we were messing with them, but they were glad to see the unhealthy hedges gone.

You awake still?

Angus started making a fence. From scratch. One that didn't use any screws, in fact, but is held together by old-fashioned mortice and tenon joints that are so strong you could have an entire rugby team swinging on them and they wouldn't break off. Seriously.

He did each section by hand.


Starter fence


And it kept going.


Growing fence


In the meantime, I seriously took down the pond foliage, reducing it to a massive pile of woodchips, which I used to fill the empty pond with. But I didn't just attack the pond. I removed the hedges from the entire front of the house so that more light comes in to the study now, we're not so boxed in.


Nice tidy front


Never let it be said that a woman packing twins can't dig up some hedges.

Nearly done here with the Great Fence Experiment of 2007.

But the fence kept growing and growing, as Angus then made pickets for it (which he used brads to hold them into place with. No old-fashioned joints there, but he did get the big compressor out, so that day everyone had an orgasm.)


Picket Angus


And then in a bold move, once the fence was painted cream (and the tops of them routed off in a neat pattern, which he's reinforced with a dark green color), he decided the trees by the side of the house were offending him terribly. So on Saturday he chopped them down (despite my protestations to just "take a bit off the top") and I dutifully woodchipped them all. The woodchipper and I are great mates now. We speak the same lingo.

And now we have a front garden we love.


Finito


And there's the wild dog in the picture there, chasing his tennis ball. You know. As wild dogs do.

It's nearly done-we have to take some hedges that were too big to chip to the tip and we are planting red climber roses along the wooden fence (so that attractive soil-looking front view will disappear). But we love it, and most of all we love how you can see every corner of the house.

We are so cheesy it hurts.

-H.


PS-Angus just came by and said "Oh God. A blog post about the fence. People must be so bored." If so, I apologize. But seriously - that fence? It's hot.

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July 17, 2007

To Big D, With Love From Helen

Scoldy wrote something the other day that got me reminiscing (do you know Scoldy? Shouldn't you know Scoldy?)

Scoldy is someone who's spent a lot of time in Dallas, much like I have. I have nothing against Dallas, really-people who read here come from there, I came from there, and a cool chick that lets me freak out on her plate still lives there. But lately I find when people ask me where I'm from, out of the handbasket full of locations I've lived in I come up with a simple, unexpected answer.

"I come from Seattle," I say.

And I flinch like a cheating whore.

Dallas...Dallas is so long ago it seems like another lifetime. In terms of the way I think of my life, it is a different lifetime. It's a whole other person who lived there, it's not really me. Not really.

The thoughts of Dallas came up in my mind when I read Scoldy's post and thought about Dallas’ dialing codes. Stupid, I know, but we work in telecom and have to think about these kinds of things. I remember living in one area code and having to dial another just to talk to my then-boyfriend, Kim. Then they introduced another area code and the whole thing was blown to hell. I’m not sure if I’m proud or not, but I successfully had all three area codes as my phone number for a period of time. Apparently, my grandpa in Kansas showed my stepmother his address book, and the entries for me took up the entire “C” section and most of the “D” section of his book (my maiden name starts with a “C”). I moved so much he would just cross out my old address and write in the new place.

I lived in Arlington (north and south), Dallas (Lower Greenville and Oak Cliff), and Richardson. I moved a lot within those areas. I moved so much that I knew the roads of Dallas like the back of my hand, I could find my way out of any traffic jam anywhere because I knew all the side roads and shortcuts.
Most of the shortcuts have been lost to the foggy archives of my shoddy memory.

But thereÂ’s a lot that I remember.

Dallas was an easy place to live for the most part. It was as part of me as the lines and etchings on the bottom of my feet. The heat springs to mind first, Christ that incredible heat. I remember being nearly dizzy from it. YouÂ’d park your car as close to a sliver of shade as you could find, and youÂ’d run from air conditioned spot to air conditioned spot. The heat sapped you of your energy during the day and at night youÂ’d sit outside, batting at the insects, wondering at what point your skin would just let go of it all.

The bluebonnets were what made Dallas. For a period of time as brief as a sneeze the sides of the Interstate would be covered in a carpet of violent purple. They bluebonnets wouldnÂ’t last long but everyone and their dog would be taking pictures in them despite warnings that trampling the collections of state flower would get you ticketed.

I remember the traffic. The worst traffic IÂ’ve ever seen in my life was actually in Atlanta (with the worst driving actually in Italy) but Dallas liked to give Atlanta traffic jams a run for the money. I-20, I-30, the 635 and the worst offender, 75 Central ExpresswayÂ…god the traffic. Roads were always being dug up and improved in the worst sense of the word. It got so IÂ’d go into work by 7, the sun already hard and hot on the sizzling blacktop, just to avoid the crush of traffic. I was a different driver then. All that aggression and offensive driving has melted off me in a haze of commuting via train, driving lessons, and good old-fashioned aging. I was reckless then, in my youth. Life was for living and driving was for anger. ItÂ’s all passed me by now.

In Dallas I had Deep Ellum, the hopping throbbing alternate scene to West End and Lower Greenville. I remember dancing at the Blind Lemon and standing on a rooftop bar seeing a crumpled Mercedes under a Parisian bridge on the TV. It was Diana’s death and all of us – buzzing on our Zimas and Dos Equiis, the Shiners and our Bacardi Breezers – didn’t believe it was real. West End was for the tourists and business travelers, whom I’d sometimes take there for a “slice of Dallas”. Lower Greenville was where I called home for a while, then it was a place I couldn’t bear. One of my tattoos is from Lower Greenville, the one that hurt the most.

I often wonder what wouldÂ’ve happened had I bought the house there that I was looking at. Then I figure: Probably nothing different than what has happened. IÂ’m where IÂ’m supposed to be.

The sights of Dallas were all familiar – Mansion on Turtle Creek. The Book Depository and the grassy knoll, both of which I visited mere days before I moved away. The hurtling slides of what was Wet ‘N Wild (Jesus, what a horrible name) before Six Flags bought the water park. The old Rangers stadium and then the new one, which always looked aggressive to me. That weird glass skyscraper that turned gold in the sun, a yellow-y pink outside of the sun. The keyhole building in downtown Dallas. The Cowboys stadium with its partial roof. Reunion Tower, where I once dined.

I remember the food in Dallas, too. In college three of my closest female friends would meet every Friday at the El ChicoÂ’s in Arlington to drink margaritas the size of melons and gorge on fajitas. The food wasnÂ’t spectacular but itÂ’s what we did. I have lost contact with most of the women, despite them trying to anchor me in their gravity, but as usual I spun out of control and eased myself out of their lives.

Jason’s Deli was for Saturday lunch – the mufalattas, the baked potatoes the size of a rabbit, loaded with cheese – and you weren’t hungry the rest of the day. Sunday mornings I would go out to Einstein Brothers and bring back a bagel made just the way I liked it, which varied from week to week. I’d pay $1.50 in quarters into the nearby machine to buy the Dallas Morning News, which I’d read the many sections of in bed with my bagel and my orange juice, excluding the business and finance ones, and I’d meticulously check the news about the Stars.

Ah, the Stars. I used to watch the games. I used to watch the players practice at Las Colinas. I used to know every single stat to every single one of them. Now I donÂ’t even know most of the players. Your priorities change, even if you still carry a torch for the little team that could. I will always love the Stars.

I went to college at UTA. I finished high school in Arlington. Never having fitted in, I took a load of classes during the day and wound up graduating a semester early. It suited me.

I was never a Texan.

I couldnÂ’t have been-it just didnÂ’t compute with me. I remember how fond Kim was of me but IÂ’ll never understand why. The me that permeates my memories of back then was a raw, naked individual prone to rage and displays of pique. I was a hollow shell of uncontrollable emotions. I was nothing inside. I had no status and no concept of status in a town whose every definition is based on what youÂ’re wearing, what youÂ’re driving, and where you live.

At the end of my time in Dallas I was finally finding peace. I had a fun little girl car that suited me perfectly and that I loved (a VW Cabrio, which I still miss horribly and wish IÂ’d kept). I had a little house in a dodgy little suburb (Oak Cliff), but everything in that house was mine. I had a bouncy dog and a room full of hockey kit and an old-fashioned gas heater in the bathroom that was all mine. I had my routines and I followed them religiously.

Sometimes I feel a pang of sadness that the Lemonheads will never know Dallas, the place where Mommy came from will be a puzzle and a wisp of smoke to them, nothing more than a name and a grainy 1980’s TV show. It’s impossible to tell them that I paid my bills to TU Electric, Southwestern Bell, and Texaco. It won’t matter to them that I was at the Stars playoff game in ‘98, the one they narrowly won, the one which pushed for Game 7, and it was so awesome that the entire stadium screamed and cried and we broke the lights above us from hitting them so hard and when we left the entire crowd was singing and dancing and laughing. It means nothing to them that we would go Kroger-ing for the Thanksgiving food, that iFratelli’s had one of the best pizzas, and that The Parks was the mall to go to for serious shopping, even if it meant braving the I-20.

But maybe thatÂ’s ok.

I mentioned something to Angus this weekend that I wish the twins would have as they grow up (but wonÂ’t have, for various reasons.)

He smiled at me. “Some things have to be a trade-off.”

HeÂ’s right.

We can start over again with the Mariners and the Seahawks. How the utilities are paid is pointless, just as it was pointless to me when I was a kid. Victoria is just some chick who’ll have a Secret, Jason’s Deli is just a name, and the heat – that amazing heat – is something they’ll find on holidays we will go on to Malaysia, Thailand, or the Caribbean. They won’t have fields of bluebonnets but they will have bluebells, and the bells can give the bonnets a run for their money.

Dallas and I got what we needed from each other. WeÂ’re cool. WeÂ’re even. It was never home and never will be. Should everything all go to hell I will never go back to Dallas again, even though as I write this I canÂ’t really tell where I would go. Speeding through the rail lines of Southwest Trains I know that this, this is home. This is where it all comes together. Living in Dallas was easy and living in England is often hard but I have never felt so calmly home in my life as I do here in our little corner of England.

But thanks, Big D.

I look back on Dallas as it starts to fade in my memory. Already parts of it are going, being replaced by things my RAM has space for (I canÂ’t remember the name of that other Mexican restaurant I loved. What was the name of that vet I used to use? And what was the shortcut off of Brown, the one that took me to Lower Greenville? Does anyone even remember TaylorÂ’s, the bookstore I used to work for, or has it passed from memory, too?)

Dallas to me will always be a memory of bright white hot sun bouncing off the road and dashboard in front of me. The sun visor is pulled down and the shadow bounces along the upper bridge of my nose. The pavement is shimmering in waves of heat and itÂ’s all covered with the dazzling sunlight, and I donÂ’t know where IÂ’m driving to but I donÂ’t need to know, itÂ’s just part of the journey.

-H.

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July 16, 2007

Reverend Tag Team

We had a Christening to go to yesterday, one for Sam and Jane (Angus' brother and his Fillipina wife) and their new son (Angus' nephew). Jane is very Catholic and their other child, 5 year-old Jilly, was baptized and goes to church and is looking at First Communion coming in a few years' time. I remember my First Communion myself - I got to carry the sandalwood oil. The rest is just a blur of Jesus references and white organza.

We had to be there for 1215 which meant leaving by 1115. In typical Angus style, at 1115 he still hadn't showered and was outside painting the fence and chatting with the neighbor. When he finally came in I was climbing the ceiling, dressed up in my black silk dress that showed a prominent baby bulge, and he tried to chat to me while cleaning the paintbrush.

"You're really winding me up. Go. Shower. Now." I said through clenched teeth. If you men are unfamiliar with the clenched teeth routine, lemme just say this: It means if you don't cooperate with me, you're looking at a return to the bachelor day tradition of eating your meals by the kitchen sink until we forgive you. Message received, Angus made his way to the shower. We left with just enough time to get there.

As he was driving, I thought about it.

"So like, say Jesus gets into a smiting mode while we are at the Christening," I start. We play what-if games a lot, usually instigated by over-active imagination me. "I'd totally be safe while the rest of you are going to hell."

"How's that?" he asks.

"Because we're in a Catholic Church and I'm pregnant. If that's not a get out of jail free card from Jesus then I don't know what is."

"Oh right. You mean you're pregnant in a Catholic church with our little bastard children that are going to hell? That kind of pregnant?" he asks.

He might have a point - I'm not exactly pure as the driven snow or anything. The divorces alone would be enough to get me a "Go to Excommunication. go directly to Excommunication. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.". I consider this, then come up with an ok counter-argument. "Well they're not born yet so they can't be judged yet. Even Adam would admit they'd be spared."

Ah, Adam. The one I've started to call The Reverend in my head. "Reverend" as I think of him as the new Moral Majority now that the old leader of the Moral Majority has gone to hell himself. I was ready to face the Reverend until Angus told me he was off on some sponsored walk for charity, so I'd have to save my fight for another day.

And damn I'd been looking forward to one, too.

We get to the church, where I find out one of the other guests is pregnant, too. I tug on Angus' shirt. "Her too. She'd be smite free like I would. The rest of you, well, I think you're screwed, but that's just me."

We go into the church and sit down. The entire rest of the family is there along with a half-dozen Fillipina women, all of whom come rushing over to touch my stomach. I can't really explain why but I didn't mind them all touching me despite my current "Get your fucking hands off me" crusade. Maybe it's because I know it's cultural for them, the women there all have several kids of their own and take turns passing babies around at the many barbecues Sam and Jane have.

The priest comes out and we couldn't believe it...he was wearing Jesus sandals. The priest was wearing Jesus sandals. Angus' mother was aghast (I can't see a church of England minister pulling off the same stunt) but I liked the guy, especially when he went up to Angus' Mum and told her that her segment of the reading should be accompanied by a tap dance, it was up to her to improvise it. A priest with a sense of humor, then-not something I'd ever come across before in my Catholic days. The Lemonheads - who had been quiet all morning - liked him, too, because as soon as he started talking they started moving.

The service was short, luckily - as I'm getting larger that whole "Please be seated/please stand up" bit is getting harder and harder. The service was overwhelmingly Catholic and every other word was "Jesus", which I guess is the case in a baptism (I haven't been to many of them but am assuming there's a general pattern.) Angus had to do a reading too, of Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want"). I'd dared him to go up there and start it and then after "I shall not want" to look up at the congregation and say "Ah, screw it-ya'll know this one, let's skip to the next bit."

He declined.

I then dared him to read it like that rap song - "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" - the one from that movie with Michelle Pfeiffer, who played the teacher with too much eyeliner on. He wasn't familiar with either the movie or the rap song, and he declined that one, too. But he did look very serious and officious during his part.


Angus reading


(Not seen in the picture: The Jesus sandals.)

I also started to work the over-active imagination on that "Do you renounce Satan and all his works?" part. I started wondering what kind of works Satan would do. Maybe he was more into acryclics than performance art, and who are we to judge his interpretations?

The service over we head over to Sam and Jane's for a barbecue. Their barbecues are famous for incredible quantites of food that come out at weird times. Last year they had spring rolls, noodles, and every variety of dead animal that can possibly be thrown onto a barbecue grill (Sam has three grills, all of which he keeps going at the same time). Then came 6 desserts. And then, because they'd timed things wrong, out came a massive mound of Bombay Potato, which is just what you want after 13 pork chops, 2 helpings of cake and untold quantities of alcohol. But their get-togethers are a load of fun and they are great hosts, so we were looking forward to it.

Usually the group splits into three - Sam's friends from university all huddle together. Angus' family huddles together. The Fillipinas are in the living room on the karaoke machine together (they always try to get others to join, but my singing voice is not great so out of consideration for the other guests, I always decline.) At this barbecue the Fillipinas skipped the karaoke, but they were my favorite women there because they kept beaming, rubbing my stomach and telling me how small I was for 6 months with twins.

We all change out of our nice dresses and suits and then get down to the business of barbecue. The newly baptized baby gets passed around a lot and he's a cute cheeky little thing and always welcome. He graces Angus' lap for a long time and it tugs at my heart. Gorby is trotting around the garden - there are children around and he loves kids. Even more, he loves kids who eat because they always drop things, which he happily vacuums up.

Angus' mum starts in early.

"Helen, has Angus told the ex about the babies yet?" she asks directly.

I freeze.

Oh God.

"No, Angus and the kids are managing it. She'll be told while they're here next week," I say politely.

"Oh dear, I do think that's awful. She'll be on her own then," Angus' Mum tuts.

"Yes she will. The children felt that would help her have some time to think things through, lest she try to take things out on them. She's done that before, you know." I say. I don't like being in this position at all.

"Yes, but she'll have no one to comfort her, it's such a shame," murmurs Angus' Mum.

Sweet Mary Fuck. While I'm sorry that she'll feel bad - actually I honestly am, I don't like her to feel bad because feeling bad sucks, and also because she'll just dump it on Angus' family and kids - I could really, really do without being made to feel bad about the Lemonheads again.

I sigh heavily. I wonder why Angus' Mum feels I am someone to share the ex's burdens with. I remember once Jeff was flying over to see us on the unaccompanied minor service. Angus was unreachable and the flight was delayed so instead of phoning me, Angus' ex phoned his mum. Mum called me. She explained that the poor ex, she couldn't just hang around the airport with her then 9 year-old son, she had a birthday party to go to! It was so sad for her to be late for a birthday party! The poor woman!

I was aghast. As far as I'm concerned, if a flight is late you fucking wait with your kid. You can be late for a birthday party in order to be with your kid. Hell, you crawl across frozen tundra for your kid if the situation dictates it. I'm sure the phone receiver iced up in her hand as his mum realized that I was the last person in the world to have sympathy for the ex on this one - Angus and I have waited loads of times with the kids for flights running late, it's what you do. His mum got off the phone then.

I look up at Angus, who's watching his mum and I. I raise an eyebrow. He makes a slashing motion to his mum, the international signal for "enough". She sees the motion and purses her lips together, but changes the subject.

She gets right on my nerves twice more.

Once was when she was playing Jenga and I accidentally jogged the table. "Do you mind?" she asked frostily. I apologized - it was an accident, honest - but I could've done without her tone. I suppose by then I'd really fucked her off, though. She'd had one other go at us before then.

"Wasn't the Christening lovely?" she'd asked.

Sure. Jesus sandals, bathing a kid's head, and a whole lot of prayin'. It was ok as Christenings go. "Yes, it was all right," I replied.

"Now you can use both Jilly's Christening outfit and the new baby's outfit for your Christening," she says. Oh this path again. I know this path.

"We're not having a Christening," Angus states firmly.

If anything, today further convinced us. The very, very religious ceremony was just honestly not our kind of thing. Why would we have our family and friends join round for something that is not important to us? It's important to them, and I understand that, but in my mind Angus and I arranging a baptism is like a hypocrisy, to me it mocks the seriousness and gravity with which those in our family place in the ceremony. I think it's rude for Angus and I - two non-religions people - to go impose ourselves on a tradition we don't believe in.

"But shouldn't you be thinking about the well-being of the children?" she asks.

Believe me. It's all we think about.

"We do. And we believe it should be their choice. If they want to be baptised when they're older they can be. We will support them fully at any juncture. But we don't believe this should be imposed on them, the choice should be theirs." I state calmly.

"It's important that the children have a name," she counters. Ah yes. That whole "the child actually gets named at the baptism, not on the birth certificate" shtick. As far as we are concerned, the name that goes on the birth certificate is the name. To us a baptism is just a religious hedging of the bets.

There is more commotion over this one. Angus finally draws a line under it. I feel really worn out, and the babies aren't even born yet. I can't wait to see what parenting lectures I'm going to get.

I realize that the Reverend may be away but there's a sub for him anytime he needs it.

It's clear to me. I'm the heathen who's corrupting his son and his two upcoming babies while not being sympathetic enough to the needs of his ex. I drive us home, Angus having enjoyed one-third of a bottle of good Polish vodka with his brother and a Polish guest and Gorby, passed clean out in the back of the car, snoring, with a full stomach and dreams of children running around. It had been a long day.

Still, I have my get out of jail free card. It's signed by Jesus. That's got to be worth something.


-H.

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July 14, 2007

Results

When Angus and I first started IVF here in the UK it was under something called the egg share program. Egg share is maybe hard to understand, but the gist of it is this-in the EU (unlike the U.S.) it's illegal to buy eggs from a woman, so if you're a woman who, for whatever reason, can't use your own eggs, you have a long damn wait on the national registry to get access to donor eggs. When you get the call that you've been matched with someone based on physical characteristics, you go through an IVF cycle yourself and take half the donor's eggs and then you hope and pray.

Angus and I had two reasons for doing this - the first is honestly the fact that if I donated half of the eggs I created during an IVF cycle, my IVF cycle would be free. It sounds horrible and materialistic, but it's true. IVF isn't cheap. The woman who I'd be donating eggs to would basically pay the cost of my cycle and her cycle. The division of the eggs would be even, except in the case of an odd number of eggs I'd get the spare. They would not divide them based on quality, just an even split.

The other reason we donated is because, based on my past experience, I produce a serious bumper crop of eggs when on hormone stimulation. Sharing half my eggs seemed so logical, I could help another woman, try to have a baby ourselves, and manage to pay only the bureaucratic costs. I confess to the vanity of being so happy that I could help another woman. I admit that knowing I was going to be able to assist someone was something that kept me focussed.

On our first IVF cycle together here I produced 19 eggs. That's considered a large amount by our clinic, which is extremely conservative and careful about managing egg numbers. My 19 eggs were split - the other woman got 9 eggs, I got 10 eggs.

I never knew a single detail about the other woman. I had to answer a long questionnaire about myself which would be filed with the government, the hospital, and a copy for the other woman, which she would get on the occasion that she achieved what's sentimentally known as a "viable pregnancy". Summing yourself up on a few pages of questionnaire is a pretty fucking scary thing when you're faced with it, and to this day I cant remember everything I said on it. I was terrified. When any children she had turned 18, they would be allowed by law to seek out their "birth mother". As far as I was concerned, I was not the birth mother. I would be happy to meet any offspring I helped create, but I had no doubt I was not their mother. The person who sang them to sleep and cleaned skinned knees and went on holiday with them was their mother.

On that first cycle, after splitting my eggs and then working on getting ours to fertilize, I mentally signed off my thoughts of the other woman. I had thought of her constantly prior to that - there was another woman in the UK doing some of the same drug treatments I was doing to get ready. There was another woman who probably thought about me a lot. There was another woman depending on me.

On that first cycle, neither of us got pregnant.

On the resulting frozen embryo transer, I was the only one who got pregnant, which I later miscarried.

The other woman had received 9 of my eggs and never achieved a positive pregnancy, and I can't tell you how bad I felt about that. She must've felt great - 9 eggs is a nice amount to work with in a country that tries for only 8-12 eggs per woman per cycle. She must've got her hopes up. She must've believed. 9 eggs later and it was all over.

In January we started on our next (and last, as in the UK you can only do two donor cycles of eggs) donor cycle. This time my body didn't respond as well to the drugs. It was an extremely stressful cycle even though I took great care of my body in preparation. In the end I only got 8 eggs, most of them not very good quality.

I felt terrible.

Another woman had her hopes pinned on the donor again, and all I came up with were 8 eggs of crappy quality. She got 4 and I got 4. 4...what an underwhelming number to pay nearly £6000 for. Of my 4, only 2 fertilized. We put both back in as the doctor explained they weren't great quality, it was incredibly unlikely they'd both take.

Fast forward and I'm now pregnant with the Lemonheads. Against huge odds those two average quality embryos made it. Unbelievable.

We decided to not find out about the other woman's success yet. I took it too hard last time, it really ate at me that I let someone down. My guilt from my previous failed cycle was enormous, it absolutely tore at me.

But something started to swing in me this week. Maybe it's knowing that we hit 24 weeks, that the midwife visit this week showed both myself and the twins in perfect health, maybe it's knowing that we're hitting survivability should the babies decide to come early. I don't know what it was, but I realized on Friday that I was ready to find out about the other woman, that it was ok to know now.

We called the clinic.

We got the word back.

The other woman never got pregnant using my eggs.

And once again I feel absolutely terrible for crashing someone's dreams. The logical part of my head tells me that I shouldn't feel bad, my eggs gave someone a chance and that's all that matters. But the illogical side of me knows how it feels to curl up in a fetal position and sob over a failed cycle.

I've been thinking about it a lot since then. Somewhere is a woman I send my heartfelt love and apologies to. Somewhere is someone that I want to hug and tell her how I did take care of myself, how I did wish for more for her.

I'm not a very touchy-feely person with regards to my stomach, I find I really only rub my growing bump when the Lemonheads are getting too active, as there's something about rubbing their kicks that makes them calm down. But this morning I sat on the couch and just rubbed the outside surface of my stomach in response to their little movements. I felt the small mound of a head on one side of me, and I smoothed my hand against it until they moved away. In whatever way I could I told them I loved them and that I'm glad they made it.

And for a little while the Lemonheads and I will mourn the dreams of another woman and hope she gets her chance soon to know what it's like to have someone inside you that you've never met but already love.

-H.

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July 13, 2007

A Typical Evening In Our House

Angus got a new toy.

See, since weÂ’re building an extension (or the architect and builders are, anyway), weÂ’re planning on doing a lot of the finishing work ourselves. For this, we will need tools. And I actually support him buying tools, because not only will they get used (and they do get used), but heÂ’s like a kid in a candy shop when heÂ’s around his man toys. I may fail to get excited about a table saw but if it floats his boat then whatever.

I went into the study the other day to find Angus slavishly poring over the new Toolstation catalog, with Post-It tabs at the ready to mark things he wanted. He pointed out something which looked not unlike a propane tank to my untrained eye. He was practically leaping out of his chair about it.

“What is that, baby?” I ask calmly.

“It’ll solve all our problems! It’s just what we need! It’s a compressor and it does absolutely everything!” he exclaimed.

“Indeed? So it’ll do the dishes?” I ask, arching my eyebrow. I feel that’s the benchmark of “I am dubious”, the arching of the eyebrow.

“Yes! It will!”

“I mean wash them, not blow the fuck out of them,” I reply.

“It’s just what we need! I’m going to have to get it!” he giggles.

“OK babe,” I shrug, smiling. “Do you need a tissue to clean up your mess from the catalog, or will you just wipe it on your boxers?”

“Ha bloody ha.”

The compressor showed up two days later. I was in London and Angus sent me a stern text that I was not to play with his new toys. When I entered the kitchen it looked like a tool and die factory had exploded all over the kitchen table. There was no way in hell I was going to play with his toys. I didn't even know what most of it was.

When he came home it was like a party atmosphere with the compressor.

“Look! I can hook a nail gun to it!” Damn. That was actually my idea for a Christmas present for him, now that’s out. Nothing says “romance” like something that can shoot a 4 inch spike out the nozzle at high speeds, after all. “It can dust! It can blow up balloons! It can spray paint! It does everything!”

Indeed. While he played with his toys I caved in to the Lemonheads demand for MSG. IÂ’ve never been a huge fan of Chinese food, but something about sweet and sour prawns was screaming my name. I got some take-away Chinese for us for dinner, and although IÂ’m good about not eating bad foods this meal was about as bad as it gets-springrolls, crispy seafood rolls, and sweet and sour prawns. It could only have gotten worse if IÂ’d actually taken our plates and battered them and fried them, too.

When I got there with our Chinese, something was up. The dog was glued to the underside of the table, whimpering. Angus looked chagrined. “You know how Gorby loves power tools?” he asked. I do – Gorby LOVES power tools. From a cordless drill to a table saw, he loves the noise and mess they make. We have to lock him inside the house sometimes he gets so over-excited about tools. “Yeah, well, he doesn’t like the compressor so much,” Angus says sheepishly.

This is a surprise. We both bet that Gorby would go absolutely mental over the new tool, and in a good way. We ate our dinner and then Angus turned on the compressor. Sure enough, Gorby disappeared into the living room in a haze of grey and white fur. Angus shut the kitchen door to work the tool (he actually had to – it was raining outside so he couldn’t go out and there was concern a part on it wasn’t working, which would necessitate immediate return to factory.) Gorby and I were in the living room with the doors shut, the dog hiding well behind the couch, whining. At the sudden sound of a valve backfiring, Gorby tried to jump up on the couch and bury under me.

This was wearing on me. It was a pattern – compressor humming, dog whistling, valve going off, dog dashing behind the couch despite comforting from me.

Finally, there was a blast of outtake air that was so loud that Gorby wouldÂ’ve tried to go up the chimney had the fire guard not been there.

“ENOUGH WITH THE TOY!” I shout.

Angus emerges from his compressor space and apologizes to Gorby. “I’m sorry, boy, it’s all done now.”

We chill out and watch version 1 of The Alastair Campbell Diaries while allowing the fried food to wrap itself around our arteries. I realize my right breast is itching terribly as I lounge on the couch. Fuck, I think. I have PUPPP. I delicately peel back my T-shirt (by "delicately" I of course mean "rip up my T-shirt with the grace of a frat boy at Ft. Lauderdale") and see, instead of said hateful rash, I have a bug bite.

I look up at Angus. "I have a bug bite on my boob."

He looks at me and shrugs.

I frown. "I need sympathy." I don't really need sympathy, it's just something we do.

"Oh! OK. Um...sorry about the bug bite."

I nod, satisfied.

We finish our TV program, love on Gorby once more to make sure he's feeling secure (he is, he has a very short memory) and then head up to bed. Once there, I find three more bug bites. I turn to Angus, who is reading his magazine in bed.

"I have four bug bites," I state.

"Oh," he replies, disinterested, folding up his magazine and switching off the light.

"Sympathy, please."

"I already gave you sympathy!"

"That was for ONE bug bite. I now have FOUR."

He sighs deeply and spoons me.

"My thoughts are with you at this difficult time."

This. This is why I'm with him. Because he buys compressors and knows just what to say.

-H.


PS-Zane could not make the meeting, so he sent a sub. Luckily said sub is someone I have worked with before and whom (according to Angus) is “sweet on me”. I’ll take a sweet on me over a showdown anytime, but I know it’s just a matter of time before Zane and I stare down over a table. Sorry, meant to blog yesterday but was exhausted after a long day of soul-sucking meetings.

PPS-Surprisingly I saw a large chunk that I had written a long post about on someone else’s blog, word for word. And I know it was mine because I’d done some edits to it that showed up on the other site. When I quote others or use something from an email, I credit them (even if I just use their initials or a shout out to them in case they want to maintain anonymity). I have seen people copy whole posts of mine and paste them, but they do usually tell people where the found the info, which I’m absolutely fine with-on the few occasions it looked like someone nicked whole posts of mine, I got pretty fucked off. Quote me? Link me? Borrow whole passages? No problem as long as you mention where you found it, because otherwise it pisses me off when people steal and makes me feel cheap and dirty and used, and not in the good “Friday night boot-knocking” kind of way, more like the "I wrote your term paper and you stiffed me on the payment" kind of way.

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July 11, 2007

Crash, as Filmed by Robert Altman

Yesterday was directed like a Robert Altman film. One continuous shot as the trippy dippy lead character (me) went about her daily grind. Maybe you can picture it-panning from the warehouse where the scene dressings are stored, as I walk along a path dodging golf carts. Script boys run between sets and in the background is someone dressed like Big Bird.

Instead, my daily grind yesterday was set in London, and quite a few things happened yesterday in the typical non-descript way that my life seems to happen.

I took the train in to London, hopped an overcrowded tube, and headed to my therapist. The tube was heaving with morning rush hour traffic, which is always a scenario I don't like because I just don't like crowds. I sigh heavily and sway from hand to hand as I stand in the aisle. I wonder if I pick my feet up if I'll remain standing, so packed is the train.

Then? The Robert Altman camera pans to a middle-aged man who is reading his paper as he sits on a seat nearby. He looks at me. He takes in my protruding gut. He kindly offers me his seat. I wearily accept with enormous gratitude. It's a first for me, a man giving me his seat. It's also a first for me, a woman accepting the seat. As I keep growing, hopefully it won't be the last.

My therapist meeting was good. The walk down the tree-lined residential avenue is always calming. The weather wasn't brilliant, but the intrepid me was not getting rained on and that's all that matters. More unusually my session had a unique point to it - we have spent so long trying to get me to connect to my feelings that now we're trying to get me to disidentify with them in order to strip the negative out. He had me do an exercise which I was cynical about at first but in the end, it worked.

Score one for the home team.

I like my therapist but lately I've had a hard time. Not because I am dealing with difficult emotional stuff, but because by the time I reach his place my coffee has kicked in. Big time. And for the past few weeks, I've found as soon as I enter his loft space (the house he lives in accommodates all kind of hippy granola types - massseuses, acupuncturists, therapists) I have to go the toilet. Like, big go. As in what Angus calls a "spidoosh". I'm not trying to overshare or anything here, but I absolutely cannot do big business in my therapists' toilet. That's just wrong. What if he heard? I'd need more therapy. GOD.

So every week I suffer because every week I forget about the trauma and order a coffee on the way to meet him.

I have only myself to blame.

Robert Altman films my twitchiness with aplomb.

I made my way to a work building, where I had a meeting. Then another meeting. Then another building for another meeting. I get an email from Angus which is the draft email he's going to send to his ex to break the news about the babies, and could he have my comments? We do this often-send sensitive personal emails to each other to review, to see if one of us can see a potentially bad wording of something in order to make things more delicately handled. I have a few comments, which I send back.

We're getting ready to tell her next week.

Let the nightmare begin.

On my way to another tube station to go to another meeting (keep up here, Robert Altman is still working the one take angle here) I see a sale at Space NK. I do massive busines as I buy a load of Christmas presents for people. I know it's only July
, but my Christmas season is going to be pretty busy and - I can imagine - not very mobile.

I feel really homesick for Melissa then. I send her a text message. She replies. Then we talk on the phone for a long while. Our talk is about her horse camp, how she's doing, what she misses, and about Harry Potter. I had to duck off the call to go to a meeting, but I was on a high from talking to her all afternoon.

The camera pans over to me in another meeting room. We sit there and discuss technical architecture, using so many acronyms it sounds like we're speaking code. We work. We develop. Then, we plan ahead for a larger technical meeting we're having on Thursday.

One of the guys in the room, a vendor who works for us whom I know extremely well, mentions they have a new systems designer. Said systems designer is very good. Said systems designer works for Company X, the Swedish company I lost my job from years ago.

"Really?" I ask, chewing my Granny Smith apple. My feet are propped up on a chair. The guys don't mind, they offer gentle teasing about my state but do things like hand me the rubbish bin to throw my goods away in so I don't have to get up. "Anyone I know?"

"It's a guy named...." my colleague starts, flipping through his notebook to get the name. "Ah! Here it is. His name is Zane."

I stop chewing. The apple feels like a heavy mush in my stomach and a hot wash has just lurched over me. "Zane?" I ask, swallowing heavily. "What's his last name?"

"Zane...Michaelson. That's it. Zane Michaelson."

And since I'm such an excellent poker player and can totally keep my emotions to myself, this is followed with: "Oh, so I see you know him, Helen?"

I nod and smile.

I do indeed know him.

He's my ex-husband's best friend.

"I used to work with him," I explain. Which I did. We never got on, really, we kind of tolerated each other for my ex's benefit. It seems like high school it was so long ago, but there you have it. In certain lines of business, it all comes back again.

Robert Altman busily films the scene, which he titles in his head "Crash", unaware that the title has already been taken.

I get to meet up with Zane tomorrow then. I haven't seen him in 4 years, not since I got let go from Company X, not since my ex and I divorced and I took up with Angus. And now I'll be across the table from him, the customer, the pariah, the cuckolder...and the pregnant one. I don't know how much my ex - who is still living and working in China - knows. I did send him an email telling him of Mumin's death and he sent a reply that was actually nice and polite. We don't talk because we don't need to, but that doesn't mean I'd want him to get hurt. If he would. Maybe I'm being presumptuous there, too, maybe he's so over me I'm not even a memory. I can't imagine he doesn't know I'm with Angus, as telecoms is more gossip-y than Sweet Valley High.

Angus had to meet and work with people who knew both him and his ex. He never had any really uncomfortable conversations about it, as the people he worked with were pretty conservative and very English about the handling (tiptoe, be delicate, don't mention the war!). Zane, on the other hand, is about as subtle as acid reflux. It will be uncomfortable. I'm looking forward to it like I'm looking forward to childbirth. Scratch that - I'm more looking forward to childbirth than I am meeting Zane.

Angus hugs me later that evening. "It had to happen," he tells me sympathetically.

Robert Altman circles us, standing in the kitchen with his camera.

"I know," I reply. "It did." And it did have to happen. Telecom is incestuous. It was inevitable that I run into this situation, I had to bust my Facing People From the Divorce cherry at some point. In some ways, I can even imagine I may even be in the same space as my ex again (although while he's in China, this is pretty unlikely seeing as he was never a fan of the UK and I'm unlikely to find myself in Guangzhou anytime soon).

Everything is always so complicated.

Even Robert Altman agrees and he should know, he's been following me all fucking day.

-H.

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July 10, 2007

Rules of Pregnancy

A cool mum-to-be I know sent me the following email, which I think was appropriate enough to include here:


Rules of Pregnancy


1. The appropriate response to a couple telling you they are having a baby is "Congratulations" with enthusiasm. Any other response makes you a jerk.

2. Through the wonders of science, we now know that babies are made ONLY by the mother and father- not grandparents or other family. Unless the baby is in your uterus or you are the man that helped put it there, you may not ever use the phrase "my baby"

3. On the same note, unless you made the baby as defined in #2, the pregnancy, birth and the raising of the child are not about you. You do not have input. No one wants to hear your opinion unless they ask for it.

4. The body of a pregnant woman should be treated the same as any other body. You would not randomly touch someones stomach if they were not pregnant, nor would you inquire into the condition of their uterus, cervix or how they plan to use their breasts. Pregnancy does not remove all traces of privacy from a woman.

5. Likewise, no woman wants to hear comments on her weight- ever. A pregnant woman does not find it flattering that you think she is about to pop, must be having twins, looks swollen or has gained weight in her face. Telling her she looks too small only makes her worry that she is somehow starving her baby. making such comments invite her to critique your physical appearance and you may not act offended. The only acceptable comment on appearance is "You look fabulous!"

6. Most of us have picked up on the fact that summer is hot. We are hot every summer when we are not pregnant. We donÂ’t need you to point out that we will be miserably hot before the baby comes.

7. There is a reason that tickets to Labor & Delivery are not yet sold on Ticketmaster. Childbirth is actually not a public event. It may sound crazy, but some women really do not relish the idea of their mother, mother-in-law or a host of other family members seeing their bare butt or genitals. Also, some people simply feel like the birth of their child is a private and emotional moment to be shared only by the parents.

8. Like everything else in life, unless you receive an invitation, you are not invited. This includes doctor appointments, ultrasounds, labor, delivery, the hospital and the parents home. you do not decide if you will be there for the birth or if you will move in with the new parents to "help out". if your assistance is desired, rest assured that you will be asked for it.

9. If you are asked to help after the birth, this means you should clean up the house, help with cooking meals, and generally stay out of the way. Holding the baby more than the parents, interfering with breastfeeding and sleeping schedules and making a woman who is still leaking fluid from various locations lift a finger in housework is not helping.

10. The only people entitled to time with the baby are the parents. Whether they choose to have you at the hospital for the birth or ask you to wait 3 weeks to visit, appreciate that you are being given the privilege of seeing their child. Complaining or showing disappointment only encourages the parents to include you less.


OK, let's talk about numbers 4 and 5, shall we?

About the weight - I've had a few people comment on my size now. I'm at that stage where I am very obviously pregnant now. I'm not in that ambiguous "does she need to lay off the chocolate Pop-Tarts or not?" stage, no one will confuse me with someone who went to a Harlem Globetrotters game and swallowed the game ball. I'm pregnant. It shows. There are all kinds of opinions about how much weight a woman should gain or not. I'm 6 months in and have gained 20 pounds. When I read that the average twin pregnancy should include 50 pounds of weight gain, I nearly wept. No, scratch that. I did weep. When I met my movie buddy Lloyd, he laughed at me and said I was enormous and should clearly only gain 5 pounds, no one needs to gain 50 pounds.

I refrained from smacking Lloyd as hard as I could and telling him that until he carried something the size of a bowling ball around his two intestines, he should keep his fucking mouth shut.

I did not share my popcorn with him, however.

I get loads of comments. I'm actually not that big I don't think, other women having twins - and some of women with just 1 baby - look bigger than I do, maybe because I'm a taller chick with a ribcage that Pavarotti would admire, so I can pack away a lot of baby in here. People insist on commenting on my size, and it really pisses me off. I'm pregnant, capisce? Don't go around telling me how big I am, I don't go up to you and tell you to ensure you don't have a monobrow, do I? Angus made the fatal error of calling me to the phone the other day with the term of endearment "Fat Girl". He was joking, of course. But clue drama of Faye Dunaway style and you'll understand my reaction to being called that term (he apologized and promised to not call me that again, which is good because I'd hate to ratchet my diva dial all the way up on high already.)

If you see a pregnant chick, just tell her she looks good. Even if she looks like shit. Lie, people. Just lie.

About number 4 - I can't reiterate it enough: Don't rub a pregnant woman's stomach without asking her first. Just don't do it. We are not Buddha. We are not a genie, we cannot grant you 3 wishes. We are not Care Bears who will make your very bestest wish come true. We are carrying babies and feeling a bit self-conscious about it in general, thanks. I get it that people want to "be one with the energy" or to be a part of it, but it's patronizing in the extreme. So far, I have had my stomach rubbed by seven people. Seven. In a very uncomfortable moment, I had to meet with an external company and one of my bosses came in to the meeting and joined. He introduced himself and me. Then he - I still can't believe this myself - told the table that I'm a top project manager who always delivers what he tells me to, even going above and beyond the call of duty, and to emphasize his point he patted my stomach.

I sat there with a frozen expression on my face. You'd think I was being pleasant. Inside, I'd turned into a verbal Rambo.

I'm sure some women don't mind it, there are women that no doubt feel ok or even connected about people touching them. I don't like people touching my stomach when I'm not knocked up (I need a sec to suck it in, after all), why would I be ok about emphasizing the point that I can no longer see my beaver? If women love you to touch their pregnant stomachs, I'm sure they'll tell you. They may even be the ones with the shirt saying "Bun in the Oven", with that big arrow pointing towards their crotch.

Some of the stomach touchers - like Jeff, who not only touches my stomach but thinks that my navel is a loudspeaker through which he should talk in order to be broadcast into the Lemonheads comfy 1970's-style den - are on the ok list for touching me. Angus would have full clearance to touch my stomach, only he's more likely to rub his hand across the stovetop seconds after sizzling up some fajitas. Another person who's ok for touching me is this guy:


Dad Helen and Gorby

My Dad, who phoned on Thursday and told me that the airline he works for asked him to pilot in a flight to London for an overnight stay, and could he come see us?

Of course he could. We were ecstatic, including Granddog Gorby, who thinks my dad is the best thing since sliced dog biscuits. So my dad came, had dinner and stayed overnight with us, and yes he touched my stomach, but he's one of the few with a hall pass.

But he did comment on how big I'm getting, which necessitated an ass-kicking.

-H.

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July 09, 2007

Fear

We think the nationality issue has been sorted now - thanks to those who offered links and advice, we read them religiously, and although we're still looking for official comment from Border and Immigration Control, we're much calmer about the issue that the babies will be American and British at birth. We're also pleased we don't have to get married at Basingstoke! The marriage issue has been put to rest, much to the displeasure of both of our families, but both of us really feel that the stress levels are high enough as it is, adding a wedding into the mix right now isn't going to help. We will get married. Just not yet.

I know I've been writing a lot lately about stress, issues, and conflicted feelings. Lately things have been coming in waves of primary colors, raw and wild stresses and fears that are as vivid as my hormone-induced pregnancy dreams. I don't mean for this spot to become a beehive of vulnerability, it's just I'm in an area that I have never been in before, an area I thought maybe I would never be in.

For years now, I've had few real fears. I guess when you meet with the action end of a bottle you stop being afraid of a lot of things, they just don't scare you anymore. Death doesn't scare me. Heights don't scare me. Snakes and creepy crawlies - while not my favorite things in the world - don't paralyze me with fear. I can say that I have a lot of things that concern me, but for so long I had nothing I was truly, completely, and utterly afraid of. Nothing stabbed me in the heart with cold hard terror. There was nothing that was a fate worse than death, because death itself wasn't a benchmark of alarm, and because death was, in some ways, a better answer to the life of unmitigated destruction I was forcing myself to live.

Until now.

Work with my nice couch man has been ongoing and will keep going until the babies are born, then I imagine some kind of scale down will have to happen. He's gotten me out of hopping out of myself. I am no longer feeling absolutely nothing at events that I should feel something at. I do not try to be anyone else, and I don't tell people lies so that they won't get to know me. I am the nearest thing to Me that I have ever been.

And he's helping me deal with the next round.

I always seem to have rounds. Only this one is a round which makes my mouth run dry. It makes me short of breath with panic. It makes me feel like going prostrate with agony and defeat, and that's something for me. I'm the little engine that could. I can take the defeat, the shit, the challenges. But suddenly, I am overwhelmed by something bigger than I am.

We're working as fast as we can.

I look back at the life I've lived as though I'm a war veteran standing on the edge of a very large cliff. From the view of the cliff, I can see it all. My childhood, where I was locked inside of eyes that didn't fit, where the embarassment and inadequacies first set in. My teens, where I ruthlessly seized the path of not belonging, and made it my mission to further making myself as distant as possible. My early adult years, where it was obvious to all and sundry just how detached I was, just how much was invisible from the surface. My late 20's, where I started to implode. The many, many hours I spent on a couch, trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I look down over my cliff and the sea smells of dysfunction, as screaming taunts, addictions, nightmares, emotional and physical violence, and that whine of the TV at 5 am as it plays only humming white noise churn below me. I am none of those people now, but they are all in me, and I am trying to reconcile them and move on. I survived it all, but even more than that, I survived myself. I did a far better job of enforcing the nightmares than anyone I ever loved could ever have done.

And now I feel kicking. It's gentle but insistent. It comes in the mornings, it comes in the late evenings, it comes when I am still. There is no noise in my head but there's noise in the ever-growing curve of my abdomen.

I have dreams that I am a warrior, battle-weary and scarred, trying to get three children out of a war-torn country. I am told, in typical Freudian bullshit fashion, that two of the children in my dream are the Lemonheads. The other child I am trying to save is me. I don't know what to make of this, but then I often don't know what to make of anything.

The battle to get over how broken I was is largely over. We have some smaller pieces to work on, but I am in my here and now. I am proud of the work I've done. I am proud that I survived myself. I wouldn't wish being broken on anyone, but if you make it through and can look back, then you are the strongest person I know.

I do not fear death. I do not fear love. But I do have a fear now, and it is scarier than anything I have ever felt. It punches me in the gut and takes my breath away. If I don't protect the babies as I should have been protected, I will have failed them. I will have failed myself. If I don't take heed and take a different path, then I will ruin them. If I don't save them from what I know is out there, then I will be no better than the monsters I tried to run from. It's not just all up to me, it's not all just tilting at windmills. I will conquer it, because there is no alternative.

My fear was unexpected.

My fear is honest, and terrifying.

My fear is simple.

My biggest fear in the world is that my babies will turn out like me.

-H.

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July 06, 2007

The Logistics of Loving a Foreigner

Throughout all the baby talks, decisions, arguments, stresses, and choices, one thing has been 100% crystal clear to Angus and I - the babies, when they are born, will immediately be registered as American citizens by myself and British citizens by him. This is a point of non-negotiation for both of us. Our children will be dual citizens from Day One (ok, well, really more like Day Five, as we need to get home from the hospital first).

It's not that we worry there'll be an international incident regarding them or anything, but we are both keen to have our children be a mixed part of both of our lives. It's not ok for me to not register them as Americans, because that's where I'm from, that's what I am. It's not ok to not register them as British citizens, because that's who Angus is, that's where we live (and there's the side issue of the babies needing visas, etc.)

I did check with the American Embassy about the rules on this. For children born outside of wedlock to a U.S. citizen mother and non-U.S. citizen father, they absolutely can be American citizens as long as I have lived in the U.S. for 5 years after the age of 14 (it seems a strange rule, but I comply. I have official college transcripts to prove it.) So I need to turn up with the babies at the Embassy with my passport and birth certificate, as well as proof I lived in the States for 5 years after age 14 (if they even ask for it, I have a feeling once I open my trap it'll be clear I am, indeed, a Yankee Doodle Dandy), and voila-the babies get American passports and are Americans.

I checked on this.

I was worried about it.

My fears were assuaged.

Turns out I should maybe have checked on the British side of things, too.

Silly me - I honestly thought American citizenship rules would be more difficult than British ones. Seriously. Not because I'm having a go at America, but immigration in the States is so complex, I thought American citizens born abroad thrown into the mix would make it harder.

It turns out, as Angus and I aren't married, the babies cannot be British citizens from birth. Believe it or not, it's only because the British citizen in this instance is, according to Border and Immigration Control, "not relevant". Citizenship apparently passes matrilineally in this country, the fact that the father is British does not matter a jot. We can apply for British citizenship on the babies' behalf after they become Americans, but it's not a guarantee that they will get it, which I feel is really, really fucked up.

All this could be solved if we had gotten married.

I'm here on a work visa, not a fiancée visa, which means (we think) I'd have to apply to the Home Office for permission to get married because I'm not in the UK with indefinite leave to remain (I would have gotten that by March next year, only they changed the fucking rules last year and so I have to go through the hassle and stress of trying to renew my work visa for one more year before I can get indefinite leave to remain. This, because immigrants are BAD. Even immigrants like myself, who pays 40% of my salary in taxes and owns a home. We're all bad.) If I apply for a fiancée visa, I have to leave the country while it's being considered, and not only is that going to be difficult with regards to work ("Hey! Hope you don't mind, but I have to fuck off for a while as I'm being considered for a fiancee visa! See you soon!") but it'd mean our little family of four would be apart for a while.

God, the drama.

Add on to the fact that while Angus and I do want to get married and will get married, neither of us want to do it now, as it means we've loads of paperwork to do, a month of preparations, and then - how neat! - I can get married while 7 months pregnant and the size of a small island nation! I'm so happy! This is totally what I had in mind, struggling to get the paperwork in and avoiding getting married in a designated "U.K. Immigration Restricted Office", which in our case means Basingstoke, which is a town that's rather like the asshole of the U.K. We could go to the States, but something about flying at 7+ months pregnant kind of makes me wary of that idea.

All this, and I'd be seriously pregnant.

Shotgun wedding. Just what I'd always envisaged for myself.

You can take the girl out of the Deep South, but you can't take the Deep South out of the girl.

(I am not judging shotgun weddings. If you got married because there was some knocked-upness going on, then I promise you I am not having a go. I'm just talking about how I saw my future.)

So last night there we were, severely depressed. Neither of us want to HAVE to get married. And while I'm completely happy with an elopement on a beach somewhere, Angus is dead certain - a wedding for us will be an event with friends and family. I woke up at 4 am and tossed and turned for hours, my mind a riot - how would we get a cake? How would we get a first dance - there are two babies in the way? How would we get invitations in time? We didn't budget this in, what impact will this have on the nursery fund we're saving? For the love of God, how enormous am I going to be at my own wedding? I saw it now, me showing the photo album to the babies in the future: Here's Mommy and Daddy. Yes I know, we're looking pained. And Daddy looks hungover. And - what's that? Oh no, sweetheart, that's not a flower girl. Those are Mommy's pregnant cankles.

Wedding stuff seriously stresses me out. Not only is it very complicated by the fact that I may have to get permission from this country to get married (which is so fucking patronizing, but it's yet another fact I need to check on), but I just don't want to get married while pregnant. And we don't want the stress right now. And this isn't how we wanted it to be, either of us. But ensuring the babies are citizens of both countries is hugely important to us.

God. Once Adam finds out about this it'll be hell. Adam is already in line for an ear-bending next weekend, not only from myself but from Angus, Angus' other brother, and his brother's wife (the Filipina). We are all sick and tired of his crappy comments adding to the feeding frenzy that us foreign brides may spirit off the English babies. He's going to be told in no uncertain terms that he needs to think before he speaks, that the implications of his words are huge. I keep thinking he's assuming I'm going to go all Not Without My Daughter on them, except in our case it'll be Not Without My Daughter and Son. And this is the U.K, not Iran. And I'm no Sally Field. So, really, nothing like Not Without My Daughter, but you get my meaning.

So this morning we started phoning offices as soon as they opened. Angus got on to Border and Immigration Control, and I was ready to start ringing the Home Office. Border and Immigration Control say that the law has actually changed as of July last year, all their websites are out of date, and the babies born out of wedlock to British fathers can be British from the beginning, too. Angus has asked for it in writing.

It might be ok.

Until we get something in writing, we keep nervously feeling the metal edge of a 12-guage in our backs.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:59 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 1359 words, total size 7 kb.

July 05, 2007

Some Say Love, It Is a Flower. I Say It's Five Ounces of Vegetable Oil.

Last night the boy really pulled out all the stops.

I got home and was greeted by the dog, who generally finds it's his main purpose in life to:

1) Hate the postman
2) Bark at thunder
3) Greet anyone entering the house (us, friends, burglars) with a wag of the tail before retiring back to his bed in the kitchen

I met Angus in his study and shared with him my American purchase of the day - a chocolate chip cookie from a place at Waterloo. Said place make killer cookies. They're so buttery the paper bag gets see-through with butter grease stains, but I figured the Lemonheads, they needed some exposure to empty calories American fare.

Angus, grinning, told me what was in stock for me that night.

He'd bought me soy burgers (he had real dead animal burgers in the freezer, he makes his own recipe in huge batches. He goes so far as to use chopped steak and blue cheese, none of this ground chuck business for his burgers.) He'd bought white hamburger buns, something which is generally against his principles. He serves his burgers on sliced baguettes, not on something he referrs to as "packaged sawdust". He had corn on the cob, mushrooms, and potatoes, all for the grill. He had apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

But his coup de resistance? The point where he earned more boyfriend points than it's possible to spend in a lifetime? The moment when I knew how much he loved me?

He bought me a package of processed cheese slices for my burger. Like the Kraft ones, the ones that are an unnaturally bright orange, the ones individually wrapped in plastic that's impossible to get off the corners of the cheese slices correctly. We have a fridge full of French cheeses, we have a huge lump of English cheddar...and my boy went and bought me cheese slices because he says that's how American 4th of July cheeseburgers are supposed to be.

Nothing says "I love you" like processed cheese product. Nothing.

We sat under the canopy of a tree while he barbecued our dinner. Despite the chill and the rain, he insisted we grill. "This is what you do on the 4th of July," he explained. "You grill. So we are." It was very cozy and companionshippy, and I was so grateful. We ate our mushrooms. We had our corn on the cob (I'm a weird one when it comes to corn on the cob. I love the stuff, but I won't eat it off the cob. I have to cut it off the cob. I don't like scraping my teeth against something that feels like an unsoaked sponge. I have issues, I know.) He made me my soy burger with a huge smear of bright yellow mustard. "They didn't have any French's mustard at the shop," Angus explained apologetically as he spread Coleman's on the upper bun. He put a huge dab of salsa on my burger. And I got not one but two of my fake cheese slices.

The food was excellent, including my packaged cheese product. I have 14 slices left and I'll be damned if I'm not going to eat every single one of them (look alive, Lemonheads. This is Mommy's home turf, right here.) I don't want processed cheese food every day, but dammit he bought it for me for our American 4th of July and I'm going to eat it.

That's love, people.

After dinner Angus warmed up the apple pie (which was really tarte tartin but beggars can't be choosers and it tasted great). He dolloped two enormous scoops of vanilla ice cream on top and handed me the plate with a fluorish.

"Voila!" he grinned. "Apple pie a la....a la...apple pie a la dipshit!" he cried.

"I think you mean apple pie a la mode," I fill in for him.

"That's the one, I couldn't remember the name of it."

We went to bed early tucked in a cozy embrace. I fell asleep right away - my purchase of a Widgey saving my hips and back from agony - and we slept through the night, waking only to throw Maggie out of the room when she started to be a pain (Maggie has extra privileges these days. She's not coping well.)

This morning we both woke up feeling a little...on. Slight nudgings from the other party, dragging fingers up and down soft backs, it was all happening before he had to leave for a meeting. As we really got going, Angus pulled the sheet back and there, in all its glory, was my very pregnant body. Wrapped around the Widgey. Because nothing says hot stuff like a pregnant chick spooning an enormous nursing pillow.

Angus looked at the pillow.

It's covered in blue gingham. It's not exactly a turn on. I imagine that in men's minds it's similar to trying to give Dorothy one while Auntie Em was in the other room.

"Er..." I said. I hastily shoved it off the bed.

Smiling, Angus crawled up to me. Suddenly, he looked stricken with pain. "Leg cramp," he gasped through badly clenched teeth. He shook his leg wildly up and down, trying to get the cramp out. While he did that, I had to adjust myself as the sudden loss of my Dorothy-like dildo meant my hips and my nearly 6 months pregnant stomach weren't aligned, and it was painful.

I wondered if this is how sex will be when we're in our 80's.

We got there in the end (and it was good!). The beginning drama didn't affect us and instead I think a little reality proves that if you can get through all that and still desire each other, then maybe there's a spark there that'll last you for years to come.

Besides, he bought me processed cheese slices.

In some countries that must mean we're married.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:59 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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July 04, 2007

My Fellow Americans

Although I left America 8 years ago, there are some days where I get a bit warped around the edges, where I am not quite the color I should be - I fade a bit, and get a little more introspective (as if that's possible). I think about my home country a lot on some days, and on those days I get a bit opaque. My edges are faint.

Today is one of those days that I often feel just a little bit pale on.

It's not as hard on me as Thanksgiving is, that Thursday is generally very hard on me, but it's a day that I feel just a bit...off.

Today most of the people I lived amongst have the day off. It's a day where you wake up and stretch, maybe have a morning round of loving. You open the curtains to the sunshine, think about everything you need to do today, and turn the TV on. The stores are all closed. Your neighbors are all home.

Your day may be filled with the smell of coals turning red in metal-tubbed grills. Hot dogs, hamburgers, ribs...the smell of mustard and ketchup fills the air, along with barbecue sauce, corn on the cob, and pie. Watermelon is chilling in a cooler. Bottles of beer are sweating on the tabletop, their labels bubbled with moisture. Maybe a pitcher or two of some lucious drink involving blenders, ice, and sheer mess are lounging about.

Your day may have the sound of rawhide meeting a bat as a line drive causes the fans to stand up and cheer at the stadium. If you're in the neighborhood, you hear the guy next door laughing, and the sound of sprinklers - and children running through them - is the hum and throb of the daily background noise. Tonight, somewhat sticky, somewhat humid, you'll maybe sit down and watch the fireworks explode overhead. You'll "Oooh!" and "Aaaah!" as appropriate, because that's what you do when the bangs occur overhead.

And these are things that I miss.

Stupid, really.

I may not necessarily miss much, but I do miss Nabisco products. I miss TV in the evening. I miss a grocery store full of so many things I will never need or use, but at least they're there, hanging out and waiting. Cookies? Check. Double stuff cookies? Check. Double stuff cookies dipped in frosting? Check. I wouldn't touch the things, I think they sound revolting. But it comforts me to know they're there. I miss Target and Boston Market and Jason's Deli. I miss Pop Tarts not being a strange thing to eat for breakfast. I miss being able to open my mouth and not having to think about which vernacular I use.

But these things are slight things I miss. They pass. I look at what I have in my life here and it is decision I made, and don't regret.

But on the 4th of July, like Thanksgiving, I miss home.

Maybe I'm romanticising things, about how your days will be, about how it all pans out. Maybe barbecues and sprinklers and baseball games are a thing of the past, much like Trick-or-Treating and Easter bunny baskets. Maybe I've just not moved on.

My day today is heading into London for a meeting. I'll be listening to Southwest Trains announcements and my iPod. Lunch will come from a sandwich shop, although my lovely Angus has promised me a BBQ for dinner, even if the rain starts pissing down (which it will. It's neverending. We had a party planned for Saturday but we've canned it as the weather is supposed to be foul this weekend.)

Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad to be here, and am very glad to have the company of Maggie, Gorby, and my lovely boy, who has changed the desktop picture on our home PC to one of an American flag for the day. He's generally very sensitive and caring on the days I feel homesick and I am so grateful. Now if I can just get him to quit playing his new favorite radio station he's convinced that Americans listen to - it's KWBY, which he found on the web. It's a radio station for gaw cowboys. Yes, you read that right. He and Gorby like to dance to the music while I cringe and hope he'll turn the racket off.

But even though I'm very glad to be here, it doesn't mean I don't miss something that was a part of me for 25 years.

Happy 4th of July, then. Have a beer and light a sparkler for me. Have fun today.

-H.

PS-strange, I hadn't realized it-in the past few weeks I had my 1,000th blog post and my 16,000th comment. Angus pointed this out to me this morning as we're in the process of moving my blog from everydaystranger.mu.nu to a new server (so if you come in to the site via that URL be advised it'll be turned off in the next few weeks). I promise to give out the new URL once it's moved (although I'll still accessible via http://everydaystranger.net and http://everydaystranger.eu), but I'm not quitting and I'll still be Helen of Everyday Stranger (Helen of Troy was already taken).

I'll be sans KWBY, though, that's for sure.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:26 AM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
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July 03, 2007

Scotland the Brave

Slight diversion while I try to get my head round the baby suggestions yesterday-a lot of them were very good, many of the products I can't get here but am looking at alternates, and although I can't find Boppys here, I bought myself a poseur Boppy wanna-be today, mostly because my hips are screaming in agony during the night as the weight of my stomach throws everything out of whack.

So, like...how about a Scotland recap?

'Cause I'm sure you're sick of clicking here and finding how stressed out I am. My stress might be osmotic, so soon you'll be stressed, as instead of moving over water my stress moves over pixels. It could happen.

Getting to Scotland from here is reasonably simple and incredibly cheap if you plan it in advance. Both Angus and I are huge, huge fans of the sleeper train from ScotRail, and if you check their page they have a little tiny link to something called Bargain Berths. If you play around with the dates, you can book an overnight sleeper train on the Bargain Berth for £19. Ordinarily, it costs you a few hundred pounds. Totally worth it to go through their exasperating website. The sleeper train is dead easy-get on the train in central London late at night, get off the train first thing in the morning in central Edinburgh/Glasgow/Aberdeen/Inverness wherever the hell you're going in Scotland. I took us to Fort William, as it's close to Oban, where the power station (and point of Angus' birthday present was.) From there, we would take various ferries about the Hebrides and the Isle of Skye.

You also sleep like a baby on the sleeper train. You rock gently with the movements of the train, I absolutely love it. Besides, there's something about waking up to the views of the Highlands on the train.


A view from the sleeper train


And even more spectacular was this, which we saw this from our seats on the train while downing our breakfast:


Waking up in the morning to a view like this is quite ok


When we got off the train at Fort William, we picked up the hire car and drove to Oban, then out and about Loch Awe to Cruachan Power Station. We had a tour of the station by the most Scottish Scotsman I've ever met. I do ok with the Scotch accent, but I struggled with this guy, even wondering for a while why the tour guide kept talking about Lahore. What does a large city in Pakistan have to do with this power station? I wondered, as they bussed us into the mountain. I then cottoned to that "Lahore" was close to his pronounciation of "Loch Awe".

My Gaelic sucks.

We stayed overnight in a completely unremarkable B&B, remarkable only for The Most Uncomfortable Bed in The History of Medieval Beds. We had springs coming out of the bed, seriously. It was the one and only time either of us could think of a crappy hotel we'd ever stayed in Scotland in, and it will be the last.

We took the ferry then to the Isle of Mull, one of the Inner Hebrides.


Caledonian MacBrayne


On the way we passed one of my summer homes.


My summer home


I wish, anyway.

The ferry was crowded and I was feeling a bit....naughty. I'm one of those pregnant women with a slightly insatiable horniness going on, so I decided to splurge on something that women do and men usually love.

I slid off my knickers in the ladies room and then quietly handed them to Angus when I rejoined him on the upper deck of the crowded ferry.

No lads, riddle me this-what's the correct thing you should reply when your randy lady slides her knickers into your coat pocket? Is it:

A) God you are the hottest thing on two legs.
B) You look after your own knickers, I don't want them.
C) Oh look - there's a Larus canus! Hang on!

There's a correct answer here, and it would be A. Not B. Which is what I got. But the boy did redeem himself by being very on and paying lots of attention to me in the car.

We drove around Mull, including the main village of Tobermory, which is a very cute, charming village known apparently because there's some kids show character here named Tobermory.


Tobermory


We spent the day on Mull, which was an amazing and beautiful place. We toured the Mull Highland Museum, which was very angry about the Clearances (as they should be, it was a dark time). But they kept saying the Highlanders would be back to claim the land someday, to which I thought: What Highlanders? The Clearances took place centuries ago, and continued for generations. Who is there to find to come back? There is evidence of the Clearances everywhere.


A sad victim of the Clearances


It was hotter than hell and we slept with the window open, which we later learned was a mistake.


Welcome to Midge Hell


The next morning it was warm but spookily misty.


Misty Scottish morning

And Mull was just as beautiful as you imagine Scotland will be.


Stunner


All parts, even the sheep's ass.


Yes, you!


We left Mull via ferry.


Cute boy on a ferry


We drove along Glenfinnan forest. We got stopped by traffic wardens, who were diverting traffic around a film crew filming in Glenfinnan forest. We didn't know it at the time, but apparently it was production on the next Harry Potter film.

So close, and yet so far.

We took a ferry to the Isle of Skye, where we drove to the north of the island and stayed in an old baronial home. The innkeeper there told us that next weekend the hotel was booked with a number of "Hollywood types". Our second run in with the movies, we were intrigued and asked more.

"Oh I can't tell you who's staying here," the proprietress said demurely. But she did tell us the name of the film.

We drove to Portree, where over lunch I got out my Blackberry and googled the film.

"OH MY GOD!" I shrieked. I can be so American. "Do you know who is in that film?" I asked Angus.

He looked blank.

He really only know Jack Nicholson, every other Hollywood name seems to pass him by.

"It's McDreamy! McDREAMY! He's on this island! He's going to be in that hotel!"

Angus continued to look non-plussed.

"I liked him from Can't Buy Me Love! Who can say that? I had true fan love, and even tolerated his crap film!"

Most of Portree was roped off for more filming, which is of his new film Made of Honor.

We never saw McDreamy.

That's ok.

I'll still have Can't Buy Me Love.

We spent the day in Skye, then headed back to the mainland.


Me again


On our last day we saw that famous viaduct, which I have fond memories of.


Hogwarts Express


It was a wonderful trip. I am so glad we went, it was relaxing, warm, wonderful, and we felt like a couple, which we both needed.

Someday, maybe I'll get to live in Scotland.

I think that'd be a little slice of heaven.

-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 02:48 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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