I've been trying to resist the stereotypical New Year post.
I fear I'm about to fail...I'll keep it brief.
I've spent the evening with mascara smeared across my face, crying at the prospect of saying goodbye to my family. But, as my dad said in his usual blunt and not-particularly-helpful-but-well-meaning-manner, I 'just have to be more positive.' And that's my resolution. I'm fully capable of making this move a resounding success - of beating down the negativity and embracing my new life wholeheartedly. Granted, in doing so I'll probably use up my energy quota for the decade, but needs must. I'm also fully capable of bringing about doom to all mankind - this is primarily accomplished by donning warmest, comfortablest clothing and sitting in a morose stew while watching ANTM. But I think we can all agree that in doing so I probably wouldn't be doing myself the biggest of favours.
So. Positivity. 2010. Yes.
Feeding the monster
Like befriends like, right?
As such it will come as no surprise that a large number of my friends are as neurotic as I am, and, over the years, I have built up quite a collection of CBT metaphors (the fact that I casually know it as an acronym rather than its full word expansion says something). There are boats to be floated, ropes to be dropped and parrots to be silenced. Quite often I'd like to tie the parrot up with the rope and send him out to sea in the boat.
Generally I don't tolerate these metaphors particularly well. While they have their place and do work for some, I don't really find them helpful - but maybe I'm just jealous that I've never been bestowed my very own metaphor (just give me time). However there is a borrowed metaphor that has resonated with me, not so much as something to help me control my neuroses as much as being a useful descriptive tool, and that is the feeding of the monster.
In this little story, the monster is Worry and the feeding of the monster is giving into the Worry in a futile attempt to shut the monster up. Unsurprisingly the monster never shuts up and just gets bigger and stronger and more capable of mind domination.
I was contemplating my personal monster today while walking the dog (real dog). It was so quiet and beautiful and as I stomped down the muddy hillside I felt like Tess of the D'Urbevilles or Daphne DuMaurier or Jane Eyre (the only one of my hill stomping heroines that's a) not fictional and b) from Devon is Daphne, so I decided I was most like her). Except I was unable to fully appreciate my heroine-embodiment because inside my brain the monster was doing some stomping of its own - up and down on white matter, causing grey matter to go into overdrive.
The monster's current concerns are primarily visa and wedding related. He's not very imaginative. He tends to be at his most active when everything else around me is quiet - at night, for example, or when I'm bored or when I'm ummm in long spells of unemployment...
I don't much mind - I don't really have the will or energy to kill him off. Or maybe it's a case Stockholm syndrome - he's dominated for so long I've come to love him. Either way we've reached something of an equilibrium - feeding him these days is pretty cheap and easy - all I have to do is google my various anxieties or ask Jeremy questions for the 1000th time and he's fed. Temporarily of course, but I don't feel particularly disadvantaged for having him around, although that may just be because of the company I keep.
There was a time when feeding the monster was particularly costly and caused great life-upheaval...
...It was the summer of 2003. I'd just got back from Italy where I'd met an American. He was lovely. We were still emailing / IMing back and forth and we were making plans to for him to visit around Christmas time that year.
At the same time I got a job working for the MOD. The most boring job at the most boring place surrounded by the most boring people. I was bored out of my mind for 7.25 hours per day and then I was staying up til the early hours IMing the American, so I was exhausted and bored.
Prime Monster Prey.
I started to go a little crazy. I didn't think I could wait until Christmas to see the American again. So my mind did something like this:
What if he forgot me? Or met someone else? What if I met someone else and forgot him? I didn't want to forget him. I had a hunch he was special. But he said he was coming over. But what if he didn't come over? How could I know for sure?
The lack of control over the situation was killing me. While I should probably have sat back, cool and calm in the knowledge that the American liked me and was going to travel 1000s of miles to visit me in just 3 months time, I couldn't.
So I fed the monster a £300 ticket to JFK.
My parents were livid. In both meanings of the word - they were so angry they turned purple. I can't really blame them. Their 19 year old daughter was flying 3000 miles to stay with a man they'd never met and she'd only known for 5 days in Italy.
Jeremy was worried - I had to convince him I wasn't coming over with any expectations other than following up on a hunch. Thankfully he shared the hunch or it could have been one big belly flop.
So you could say that feeding the monster paid off. I'm happy aren't I? Jeremy and I fell in love, my parents realised he wasn't a raving-lunatic (although they probably still think I'm one) and the story worked out. Right?
Right. Except that the story would have worked out without me feeding the monster. If I'd sat on my fears, silenced the monster and waited for Jeremy to come to me, nothing would be different except I'd possibly be a little less irritating.
At some point I'm going to have to start withholding food. For Jeremy's sake if nothing else. I might wait a few more months though, until Jeremy's nearby to help me out with the monster starvation - I have a feeling that after years of regular food, it's not going to take being cut off particularly well.
As such it will come as no surprise that a large number of my friends are as neurotic as I am, and, over the years, I have built up quite a collection of CBT metaphors (the fact that I casually know it as an acronym rather than its full word expansion says something). There are boats to be floated, ropes to be dropped and parrots to be silenced. Quite often I'd like to tie the parrot up with the rope and send him out to sea in the boat.
Generally I don't tolerate these metaphors particularly well. While they have their place and do work for some, I don't really find them helpful - but maybe I'm just jealous that I've never been bestowed my very own metaphor (just give me time). However there is a borrowed metaphor that has resonated with me, not so much as something to help me control my neuroses as much as being a useful descriptive tool, and that is the feeding of the monster.
In this little story, the monster is Worry and the feeding of the monster is giving into the Worry in a futile attempt to shut the monster up. Unsurprisingly the monster never shuts up and just gets bigger and stronger and more capable of mind domination.
I was contemplating my personal monster today while walking the dog (real dog). It was so quiet and beautiful and as I stomped down the muddy hillside I felt like Tess of the D'Urbevilles or Daphne DuMaurier or Jane Eyre (the only one of my hill stomping heroines that's a) not fictional and b) from Devon is Daphne, so I decided I was most like her). Except I was unable to fully appreciate my heroine-embodiment because inside my brain the monster was doing some stomping of its own - up and down on white matter, causing grey matter to go into overdrive.
The monster's current concerns are primarily visa and wedding related. He's not very imaginative. He tends to be at his most active when everything else around me is quiet - at night, for example, or when I'm bored or when I'm ummm in long spells of unemployment...
I don't much mind - I don't really have the will or energy to kill him off. Or maybe it's a case Stockholm syndrome - he's dominated for so long I've come to love him. Either way we've reached something of an equilibrium - feeding him these days is pretty cheap and easy - all I have to do is google my various anxieties or ask Jeremy questions for the 1000th time and he's fed. Temporarily of course, but I don't feel particularly disadvantaged for having him around, although that may just be because of the company I keep.
There was a time when feeding the monster was particularly costly and caused great life-upheaval...
...It was the summer of 2003. I'd just got back from Italy where I'd met an American. He was lovely. We were still emailing / IMing back and forth and we were making plans to for him to visit around Christmas time that year.
At the same time I got a job working for the MOD. The most boring job at the most boring place surrounded by the most boring people. I was bored out of my mind for 7.25 hours per day and then I was staying up til the early hours IMing the American, so I was exhausted and bored.
Prime Monster Prey.
I started to go a little crazy. I didn't think I could wait until Christmas to see the American again. So my mind did something like this:
What if he forgot me? Or met someone else? What if I met someone else and forgot him? I didn't want to forget him. I had a hunch he was special. But he said he was coming over. But what if he didn't come over? How could I know for sure?
The lack of control over the situation was killing me. While I should probably have sat back, cool and calm in the knowledge that the American liked me and was going to travel 1000s of miles to visit me in just 3 months time, I couldn't.
So I fed the monster a £300 ticket to JFK.
My parents were livid. In both meanings of the word - they were so angry they turned purple. I can't really blame them. Their 19 year old daughter was flying 3000 miles to stay with a man they'd never met and she'd only known for 5 days in Italy.
Jeremy was worried - I had to convince him I wasn't coming over with any expectations other than following up on a hunch. Thankfully he shared the hunch or it could have been one big belly flop.
So you could say that feeding the monster paid off. I'm happy aren't I? Jeremy and I fell in love, my parents realised he wasn't a raving-lunatic (although they probably still think I'm one) and the story worked out. Right?
Right. Except that the story would have worked out without me feeding the monster. If I'd sat on my fears, silenced the monster and waited for Jeremy to come to me, nothing would be different except I'd possibly be a little less irritating.
At some point I'm going to have to start withholding food. For Jeremy's sake if nothing else. I might wait a few more months though, until Jeremy's nearby to help me out with the monster starvation - I have a feeling that after years of regular food, it's not going to take being cut off particularly well.
Boxing Day and Missing the Boy
I love Boxing Day - if anything I think it's better than Christmas Day - no pressure, no cooking, just family and left-overs. Where the name comes from I haven't a clue - something about boxing up gifts for the peasants - I could look it up but it's bound to be dull so I wont.
Boxing Day, like electric kettles and proper sausages and irony, doesn't exist in America. It's not even a (bank) holiday. I'm wondering whether when I live there I can claim it as a cultural holiday-right.
This Christmas has been my first apart from Jeremy in ummm 4 years I think, maybe 5. I've managed to cajole him into spending the last 2 Christmases in England - I thought I was onto a winner this year too but he had the cheek to want to spend it with his family rather than mine. He also did his usual trick of never quite categorically saying he wasn't coming ('I don't think I can' rather than 'no'), so right up until Christmas eveevening I was holding out hope for a surprise arrival.
Maybe because I was half expecting him to walk through the door bearing a rocking chair (my Christmas gift-request, yes I know I sound like I'm a grandma already but I really like rocking) at any time, or because I was focusing primarily on the thought of sleeping in a bed for the first time in 6 months (that plan was well and truly scuppered in a joint effort between my Grandma usurping my sister's bed and my sister very selfishly refusing to sleep on the floor and insisting on sharing my bed), I hadn't really given much thought to him not being here this Christmas.
Christmas morning I was distracted by presents and then by food, so it wasn't really until the afternoon (one of those endless afternoons that only seem to happen at Christmas... but maybe that's just the TV/Internet ban enforced by my mother) that I really noticed he wasn't around and The Missing set in.
Missing Jeremy has been something of a constant over the past 6.5 years (with an 18 month gap when doing my masters in Boston). It's become such a habit that I even miss him when we're together, but that's more of an anticipatory missing and is less potent. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, that I'd be able to turn down volume on The Missing, and focus on the fact that soon we'll be together... you might think that but you don't know me very well if you do.
On an average day, missing Jeremy is something like a constant low electrical hum - like a big fridge that's trying to cool itself down, or the sound of Marc's tiscali box recording 'Match of the Day' - it's there, it's a little annoying but it's manageable. But on some days it ups the ante and causes brain interference, and no matter what I do I can't shake it. Phones suddenly become malicious non-ringing meanies, collaborating with my email account and mobile in non-conveyance of Jeremy contact. And me? Well the brain interference means I can't quite concentrate on the matters at hand, so I become reserved and distracted and, well, grumpy.
So that was me yesterday afternoon- distracted and grumpy and resenting all forms of communication-technology. There were some highlights which distracted me from my distraction momentarily- my new red Hunter wellies, walking with Mum and Jess in the cold and the quiet, laughing at Jess when she fell over on the ice, laughing more when she fell over a second time and dragged mum down with her (I didn't try and help, I just took photographs)...
Finally I called Jeremy and it turned out he'd been trying to get in touch all day but our mobiles had conspired against us. And the Missing Mist lifted - yes he was still 3000 miles away but there he was on the end of the phone, missing me right back, and that helped some.
So today I'm back to the electrical-hum sort of missing, buoyed by the knowledge that this is my last Boxing day without him, although it's arguable whether I'll see another Boxing day for a while if I'm going to be stateside next Christmas...but that's a whole other conversation yet to be had...
Boxing Day, like electric kettles and proper sausages and irony, doesn't exist in America. It's not even a (bank) holiday. I'm wondering whether when I live there I can claim it as a cultural holiday-right.
This Christmas has been my first apart from Jeremy in ummm 4 years I think, maybe 5. I've managed to cajole him into spending the last 2 Christmases in England - I thought I was onto a winner this year too but he had the cheek to want to spend it with his family rather than mine. He also did his usual trick of never quite categorically saying he wasn't coming ('I don't think I can' rather than 'no'), so right up until Christmas eveevening I was holding out hope for a surprise arrival.
Maybe because I was half expecting him to walk through the door bearing a rocking chair (my Christmas gift-request, yes I know I sound like I'm a grandma already but I really like rocking) at any time, or because I was focusing primarily on the thought of sleeping in a bed for the first time in 6 months (that plan was well and truly scuppered in a joint effort between my Grandma usurping my sister's bed and my sister very selfishly refusing to sleep on the floor and insisting on sharing my bed), I hadn't really given much thought to him not being here this Christmas.
Christmas morning I was distracted by presents and then by food, so it wasn't really until the afternoon (one of those endless afternoons that only seem to happen at Christmas... but maybe that's just the TV/Internet ban enforced by my mother) that I really noticed he wasn't around and The Missing set in.
Missing Jeremy has been something of a constant over the past 6.5 years (with an 18 month gap when doing my masters in Boston). It's become such a habit that I even miss him when we're together, but that's more of an anticipatory missing and is less potent. You'd think I'd be used to it by now, that I'd be able to turn down volume on The Missing, and focus on the fact that soon we'll be together... you might think that but you don't know me very well if you do.
On an average day, missing Jeremy is something like a constant low electrical hum - like a big fridge that's trying to cool itself down, or the sound of Marc's tiscali box recording 'Match of the Day' - it's there, it's a little annoying but it's manageable. But on some days it ups the ante and causes brain interference, and no matter what I do I can't shake it. Phones suddenly become malicious non-ringing meanies, collaborating with my email account and mobile in non-conveyance of Jeremy contact. And me? Well the brain interference means I can't quite concentrate on the matters at hand, so I become reserved and distracted and, well, grumpy.
So that was me yesterday afternoon- distracted and grumpy and resenting all forms of communication-technology. There were some highlights which distracted me from my distraction momentarily- my new red Hunter wellies, walking with Mum and Jess in the cold and the quiet, laughing at Jess when she fell over on the ice, laughing more when she fell over a second time and dragged mum down with her (I didn't try and help, I just took photographs)...
Finally I called Jeremy and it turned out he'd been trying to get in touch all day but our mobiles had conspired against us. And the Missing Mist lifted - yes he was still 3000 miles away but there he was on the end of the phone, missing me right back, and that helped some.
So today I'm back to the electrical-hum sort of missing, buoyed by the knowledge that this is my last Boxing day without him, although it's arguable whether I'll see another Boxing day for a while if I'm going to be stateside next Christmas...but that's a whole other conversation yet to be had...
Leaving (part 5): London
I’m feeling shaky and slightly sick (For the benefit of Americans, ‘sick’ generally is understood as nauseous, pronounced nor-sea-us). It’s not the 2 glasses of wine I had tonight or the Seared Tuna with Wasabi Butter Sauce followed by Cherry and Almond Frangipane Cake, or event the episode of True Blood we watched (and Vampire Deaths are pretty darn gory). It’s a familiar feeling. I get it any time any change is imminent – from the first day back at school after the holidays to when I go to meet Jeremy at the airport. Any time anything is about to happen, good or bad, I feel sick.
Today it's because tomorrow I hand over my last London keys. At the beginning of July I had keys to my flat (complete with a bed and doors), Sian’s flat (complete with sofa rights), Jeremy’s apartment, my parents’ house, the Richmond flat and a work key-card. As of tomorrow the only keys that I’ll own are Jeremy’s, my parents’ (and I’m pretty sure they changed the locks since giving me a set) and ones to the Richmond flat (which I’d get arrested if I tried to use since no one I know lives there anymore). So errr the only functioning keys I own are Jeremy's...digging the depth of symbolism here...
I'm not sure if I'm going to miss London. Growing up one of my life-plan-goals was to live in London for at least a year - I'm fairly sure I imagined it being a lot more glamorous than the daily crush and stench of rush hour...but since it's probably the only life-plan-goal I'm likely to achieve (I'm guessing at this point the likelihood of living in Germany for a few years or of working in a refugee camp in Africa is pretty remote), I shouldn't knock it.
I think I feel for London the same way I'd feel about an irritating sibling (e.g. Jess circa 1999 - 2007) - I moan my head off about it but the second I hear anyone else that isn't a 'Londoner' (Jeremy, for example) say anything negative about it I'm up in defensive arms. Here are 5 things I will miss about London and 5 things I will not:
I will miss:
1. The markets. From Portabello's Antique too-many-tourists-but-look-at-all-the-pretty-jewelery Market to Borough Market's so-expensive-I-only-ever-go-in-to-eat-the-tasters foodie heaven to Spitalfields I-always-come-away-feeling-like-the-most-unfashionable-person-on-the-planet Market...London's markets have such an incredible sense of identity and place that it's impossible not to get sucked in and, at least momentarily, feel like you might want to belong.
2. The weather. Surprised you putting it in this list didn't I? Well, I may not be too chuffed about the weather a lot of the time, but London unequivocally has much better weather than the rest of the country. It's great for feeling superior on a summers day - sitting on the fire-escape barbecuing, smug in the knowledge that the rest of the country is under flood alert.
3. Maria's Market Cafe. An entire Cafe devoted to Bubble and Squeak (I'm not translating that - go look it up). Where else in the world could you order 'Bubble, Bacon and Beans in a Bap' and not get looked at like you have two heads and three eyes?
4. Drinking on Street Corners. No not like that. In the summer, pubs in London just spill out onto the street. Curbs become convenient seats and the atmosphere spills from one corner to the next so that the entire street can feel like one long summer-street-party.
5. Cupcakes. You may think cupcakes are an American thing and,well, you would be right. But London is home to some of the best cupcake stores I have ever happened across (and I make it my business to happen across many). Hummingbird Bakery, Peyton and Byrne and Konditor and Cook are but a few. Oooo and I just thought of another reason, which would bump it to 6 so I'll squeeze it in here: Afternoon Tea. Where else can you get dressed up to go and eat as many miniature cake and sandwiches and drink as much tea as you want?
I will not miss:
1. Being light-years away from people who technically live in the same city. London is big, and if you live in North West London and your friends live in South East London and the Jubilee line is closed for the 10th weekend running, you either have to spend a day traveling or you have to accept the friendship as being of the long-distance-variety and set up a webcam.
2. Cost of living. My friend (who works in London and lives out) pays over £3000 a year for her commuting-out-of-London Travelcard (that's over 100% more than a zone 2 year's travelcard) AND lives in a 3 bedroom house with a garden and it's still cheaper for her to do that than live in a shared flat in London.
3. The weather. Because even if it is better than the rest of the UK, it's still crap.
4. Chick Inn Village (fried chicken chain). It really irritates me because I have no idea what play on words they were going for exactly. Or is it just a big spelling error? Either way it's annoying.
5. The Tourists. Either you walk through their photo and look like a jerk or you stop and wait and stew with rage. I'm sure they'll be in Boston too, but maybe I'll feel slightly more sympathetic since I'll be foreign too.
My one regret with London is that I never really allowed myself to settle here. I was always waiting for change (aka Jeremy) to come and uproot me, so I never properly embedded myself in an area - never squandered annual gym membership or developed routines. I lurched from 6 months to 6 months, whereas had I known 2.5 years ago I'd still be here 2.5 years later I think I'd have invested more time in the London relationship and nurtured it a little.
So it wont be a great loss to my life, this city. And tomorrow when I give up the last of my keys and battle my suitcase through England's pitiful excuse for snow (as usual, 2 cm and the world comes to a standstill. I despair.), I doubt I'll feel much of a pang to be saying goodbye to it. But either way I'm sure London will remain to me somewhat like a 14 year old Jessica - something to be dreaded at times, marveled at at others and defended at all costs.
Today it's because tomorrow I hand over my last London keys. At the beginning of July I had keys to my flat (complete with a bed and doors), Sian’s flat (complete with sofa rights), Jeremy’s apartment, my parents’ house, the Richmond flat and a work key-card. As of tomorrow the only keys that I’ll own are Jeremy’s, my parents’ (and I’m pretty sure they changed the locks since giving me a set) and ones to the Richmond flat (which I’d get arrested if I tried to use since no one I know lives there anymore). So errr the only functioning keys I own are Jeremy's...digging the depth of symbolism here...
I'm not sure if I'm going to miss London. Growing up one of my life-plan-goals was to live in London for at least a year - I'm fairly sure I imagined it being a lot more glamorous than the daily crush and stench of rush hour...but since it's probably the only life-plan-goal I'm likely to achieve (I'm guessing at this point the likelihood of living in Germany for a few years or of working in a refugee camp in Africa is pretty remote), I shouldn't knock it.
I think I feel for London the same way I'd feel about an irritating sibling (e.g. Jess circa 1999 - 2007) - I moan my head off about it but the second I hear anyone else that isn't a 'Londoner' (Jeremy, for example) say anything negative about it I'm up in defensive arms. Here are 5 things I will miss about London and 5 things I will not:
I will miss:
1. The markets. From Portabello's Antique too-many-tourists-but-look-at-all-the-pretty-jewelery Market to Borough Market's so-expensive-I-only-ever-go-in-to-eat-the-tasters foodie heaven to Spitalfields I-always-come-away-feeling-like-the-most-unfashionable-person-on-the-planet Market...London's markets have such an incredible sense of identity and place that it's impossible not to get sucked in and, at least momentarily, feel like you might want to belong.
2. The weather. Surprised you putting it in this list didn't I? Well, I may not be too chuffed about the weather a lot of the time, but London unequivocally has much better weather than the rest of the country. It's great for feeling superior on a summers day - sitting on the fire-escape barbecuing, smug in the knowledge that the rest of the country is under flood alert.
3. Maria's Market Cafe. An entire Cafe devoted to Bubble and Squeak (I'm not translating that - go look it up). Where else in the world could you order 'Bubble, Bacon and Beans in a Bap' and not get looked at like you have two heads and three eyes?
4. Drinking on Street Corners. No not like that. In the summer, pubs in London just spill out onto the street. Curbs become convenient seats and the atmosphere spills from one corner to the next so that the entire street can feel like one long summer-street-party.
5. Cupcakes. You may think cupcakes are an American thing and,well, you would be right. But London is home to some of the best cupcake stores I have ever happened across (and I make it my business to happen across many). Hummingbird Bakery, Peyton and Byrne and Konditor and Cook are but a few. Oooo and I just thought of another reason, which would bump it to 6 so I'll squeeze it in here: Afternoon Tea. Where else can you get dressed up to go and eat as many miniature cake and sandwiches and drink as much tea as you want?
I will not miss:
1. Being light-years away from people who technically live in the same city. London is big, and if you live in North West London and your friends live in South East London and the Jubilee line is closed for the 10th weekend running, you either have to spend a day traveling or you have to accept the friendship as being of the long-distance-variety and set up a webcam.
2. Cost of living. My friend (who works in London and lives out) pays over £3000 a year for her commuting-out-of-London Travelcard (that's over 100% more than a zone 2 year's travelcard) AND lives in a 3 bedroom house with a garden and it's still cheaper for her to do that than live in a shared flat in London.
3. The weather. Because even if it is better than the rest of the UK, it's still crap.
4. Chick Inn Village (fried chicken chain). It really irritates me because I have no idea what play on words they were going for exactly. Or is it just a big spelling error? Either way it's annoying.
5. The Tourists. Either you walk through their photo and look like a jerk or you stop and wait and stew with rage. I'm sure they'll be in Boston too, but maybe I'll feel slightly more sympathetic since I'll be foreign too.
My one regret with London is that I never really allowed myself to settle here. I was always waiting for change (aka Jeremy) to come and uproot me, so I never properly embedded myself in an area - never squandered annual gym membership or developed routines. I lurched from 6 months to 6 months, whereas had I known 2.5 years ago I'd still be here 2.5 years later I think I'd have invested more time in the London relationship and nurtured it a little.
So it wont be a great loss to my life, this city. And tomorrow when I give up the last of my keys and battle my suitcase through England's pitiful excuse for snow (as usual, 2 cm and the world comes to a standstill. I despair.), I doubt I'll feel much of a pang to be saying goodbye to it. But either way I'm sure London will remain to me somewhat like a 14 year old Jessica - something to be dreaded at times, marveled at at others and defended at all costs.
Saying Goodbye as Slowly as Possible and an Unusual Peter Pan Complex...
I am not good at goodbyes.
To evidence this you need only look at the fact that I am marrying a fleeting holiday romance. Wherever possible, I don't say goodbye. I wrote letters to my primary school teachers, my college (not the same as uni, remember) English Lit. lecturer, my University tutor, for years - until either they stopped responding or I no longer felt the need (I'm pretty sure it's exclusively the former). I find backpacking troubling because of the intense friendships that spark up within hours and are forgotten within days. Until fairly recently I've maintained regular contact with pretty much every ex boyfriend (going back to about age 14), which has resulted in the odd botheration (not on Jeremy's part mind you, that boy only gets worried when I tell him to - which my reflexive habit of total, and occasionally highly inconvenient, honesty guarantees I'll tell him everything).
I think this drive to maintain contact with basically everyone that's ever liked me / thought I wasn't completely stupid, is entirely based on an existential, egotistical need (*insert any other philosophical jargon that happens to fit) to be remembered, to not be instantaneously forgettable.
Because I've always felt entirely forgettable. From the age of 9 I was obsessed with horses (this isn't a total tangent, I promise) - I used to have lessons once a week and go to the stables every Saturday basically to shovel horse-shit for 7 hours in exchange for being around the animals all day and getting a free ride. When I was 11 I spent a summer away from the stables and had my hair cut really short (for those of you who know my hair, that sounds pretty dumb right? It was - I looked like a mushroom). I never went back to the stables because I couldn't face the idea they wouldn't recognise me. I lost the one form of exercise I've ever enjoyed because of feeling forgettable - I can feel the recrimination tingling in my un-toned thighs.
So you know where this is going...
I'm now faced with the biggest set of goodbyes I've ever had to face. I'm no longer quite as ridiculous as I was aged 11 - I'm fairly confident the majority of people would recognise me with or without hair. But it still means that my friends will fill the space currently occupied by me. Just like ex-boyfriends inconsiderately go and get new girlfriends, when they are supposed to spend their lives lamenting my absence. I already feel jealous at the idea I wont be missed each and every day.
And what about when I come back? I can just imagine a Peter-Pan scenario, sat outside in the cold at the closed window looking in on all my friends with their new friends in the lighted warm. Friends, if you're reading this, this is absolutely a cue for you to write and tell me I'm irreplaceable and you will always keep windows open.
But seriously (I was only being slightly serious with the peter pan thing - and if I got to fly and have a fairy follow me around I think that'd almost make up for the closed window). I'm fully aware of how self-centred and self-important this sounds, but I do find it difficult to know that life goes on without me.
(I'm mostly just scared I'll miss them more than they'll miss me.)
So my goodbyes are being as long and drawn out as a plaster (band-aid) being pulled off wincingly slowly. There's my work leaving do (followed by 2 weeks at work), my team leaving brunch (primarily an excuse not to do anything on my last morning), hen-do (bachelorette party - wont have time to do one in August, although I might have enough American friends by then to have a state-side one too...), leaving London party...Each time filtering out a few people and distilling it down to the special few who it's really going to hurt to say goodbye to. Helen and Sian think they're turning up at the airport with flags... they may change their minds if my flight is at 7am.
There's nothing much do be done really. I need to get over my Peter Pan complex (entirely different to the usual want-to-stay-young one). But I also need to quit the denial. The long drawn out goodbyes, while an excuse for multiple parties and opportunities to be the centre of attention, are also a way of staving off the inevitable - the point when Jeremy and I go through security at the airport and it's just us. I know from experience that that barrier - the departure gate where there's nothing to stop you going back to the people you love, except you have to keep going forwards and further away from them, is a bigger more heart wrenching barrier than 10 Atlantics sloshed together.
While of course I want Jeremy to be a part of the picture (I want it to be 'us' but could lose the 'just') the idea that my family and closest friends wont be immediately accessible is really really hard. I find it more difficult than the idea of being 'new', of being cold, of not being understood in grocery stores unless I talk whilst holding my nose and even of learning to drive (which fills me with dread - a person who has a song called 'hannah and her hands' which gets sung whenever she drops / spills / breaks things, should not be in control of 4000lbs of speeding metal [that's the weight of an average car - I looked it up]).
Jeremy says I just have to embrace the change and all the good that will come with it (and there is a lot of good). He's right but I also think I need to allow time to contemplate how it is going to be without those key people in my every-day existence. Otherwise it'll hit me like 4000lbs of speeding metal driven by a Hannah the first morning I wake up in freezing Waltham. Which basically means I need to schedule in a few days to cry between now and February. And develop a game-plan consisting of visits and skype and other ways of interrupting their lives-without-Hannah and reminding them of my existence.
Deep breaths - hyperventilation never helped anyone.
To evidence this you need only look at the fact that I am marrying a fleeting holiday romance. Wherever possible, I don't say goodbye. I wrote letters to my primary school teachers, my college (not the same as uni, remember) English Lit. lecturer, my University tutor, for years - until either they stopped responding or I no longer felt the need (I'm pretty sure it's exclusively the former). I find backpacking troubling because of the intense friendships that spark up within hours and are forgotten within days. Until fairly recently I've maintained regular contact with pretty much every ex boyfriend (going back to about age 14), which has resulted in the odd botheration (not on Jeremy's part mind you, that boy only gets worried when I tell him to - which my reflexive habit of total, and occasionally highly inconvenient, honesty guarantees I'll tell him everything).
I think this drive to maintain contact with basically everyone that's ever liked me / thought I wasn't completely stupid, is entirely based on an existential, egotistical need (*insert any other philosophical jargon that happens to fit) to be remembered, to not be instantaneously forgettable.
Because I've always felt entirely forgettable. From the age of 9 I was obsessed with horses (this isn't a total tangent, I promise) - I used to have lessons once a week and go to the stables every Saturday basically to shovel horse-shit for 7 hours in exchange for being around the animals all day and getting a free ride. When I was 11 I spent a summer away from the stables and had my hair cut really short (for those of you who know my hair, that sounds pretty dumb right? It was - I looked like a mushroom). I never went back to the stables because I couldn't face the idea they wouldn't recognise me. I lost the one form of exercise I've ever enjoyed because of feeling forgettable - I can feel the recrimination tingling in my un-toned thighs.
So you know where this is going...
I'm now faced with the biggest set of goodbyes I've ever had to face. I'm no longer quite as ridiculous as I was aged 11 - I'm fairly confident the majority of people would recognise me with or without hair. But it still means that my friends will fill the space currently occupied by me. Just like ex-boyfriends inconsiderately go and get new girlfriends, when they are supposed to spend their lives lamenting my absence. I already feel jealous at the idea I wont be missed each and every day.
And what about when I come back? I can just imagine a Peter-Pan scenario, sat outside in the cold at the closed window looking in on all my friends with their new friends in the lighted warm. Friends, if you're reading this, this is absolutely a cue for you to write and tell me I'm irreplaceable and you will always keep windows open.
But seriously (I was only being slightly serious with the peter pan thing - and if I got to fly and have a fairy follow me around I think that'd almost make up for the closed window). I'm fully aware of how self-centred and self-important this sounds, but I do find it difficult to know that life goes on without me.
(I'm mostly just scared I'll miss them more than they'll miss me.)
So my goodbyes are being as long and drawn out as a plaster (band-aid) being pulled off wincingly slowly. There's my work leaving do (followed by 2 weeks at work), my team leaving brunch (primarily an excuse not to do anything on my last morning), hen-do (bachelorette party - wont have time to do one in August, although I might have enough American friends by then to have a state-side one too...), leaving London party...Each time filtering out a few people and distilling it down to the special few who it's really going to hurt to say goodbye to. Helen and Sian think they're turning up at the airport with flags... they may change their minds if my flight is at 7am.
There's nothing much do be done really. I need to get over my Peter Pan complex (entirely different to the usual want-to-stay-young one). But I also need to quit the denial. The long drawn out goodbyes, while an excuse for multiple parties and opportunities to be the centre of attention, are also a way of staving off the inevitable - the point when Jeremy and I go through security at the airport and it's just us. I know from experience that that barrier - the departure gate where there's nothing to stop you going back to the people you love, except you have to keep going forwards and further away from them, is a bigger more heart wrenching barrier than 10 Atlantics sloshed together.
While of course I want Jeremy to be a part of the picture (I want it to be 'us' but could lose the 'just') the idea that my family and closest friends wont be immediately accessible is really really hard. I find it more difficult than the idea of being 'new', of being cold, of not being understood in grocery stores unless I talk whilst holding my nose and even of learning to drive (which fills me with dread - a person who has a song called 'hannah and her hands' which gets sung whenever she drops / spills / breaks things, should not be in control of 4000lbs of speeding metal [that's the weight of an average car - I looked it up]).
Jeremy says I just have to embrace the change and all the good that will come with it (and there is a lot of good). He's right but I also think I need to allow time to contemplate how it is going to be without those key people in my every-day existence. Otherwise it'll hit me like 4000lbs of speeding metal driven by a Hannah the first morning I wake up in freezing Waltham. Which basically means I need to schedule in a few days to cry between now and February. And develop a game-plan consisting of visits and skype and other ways of interrupting their lives-without-Hannah and reminding them of my existence.
Deep breaths - hyperventilation never helped anyone.
Reality (and coldness) bites.
I have spent the morning holed up in Helen's bedroom in what has felt like some sort of drill for surviving a Nuclear Winter. Their boiler broke on the same day that temperatures in London decided to emulate Boston and I decided to mix-up my choice of couch. I think someone's trying to prepare me for life with Jeremy.
So I've donned the thermal underwear Helen gave me for my belated birthday present (no joke - it's not sexy but it's necessary Boston Armour. Jeremy is not going to thank her) along with my gloves, leg-warmers, hood, hot-water bottle and 3 duvet covers (comforters) and have only been venturing out to use the toilet and scavenge for food. I know that in a real nuclear winter I'd probably no be venturing out for trivial things like toileting, but I wasn't going to take it that far (although it was tempting).
Also this morning my last paycheck, for a very long time, landed in my bank account. It was nicer than my usual paycheck because I've been fortunate to have been made redundant at a very opportune time. However, looking at it and thinking of visas, weddings, flights and months of unemployment that have to come out of it, reality began to set in and I felt a little sick.
Of course financially I'll be fine - I have that notarised pledge that Jeremy will support me when I move over - and the coldness, well short of sponsoring Climate change or sabotaging the Copenhagen Summit (although they seem to be doing a pretty good job of that themselves), it's somewhat out of my control (but rest assured Jeremy will be acquiescing on the heating - i.e. he'll turn the pilot light on so I can use it). But it's all becoming very very real.
I'm excited - thrilled - to be getting married, to be on the same side of that DamnedAtlantic as my beloved, to have the opportunity to refocus my career path. The fear is creeping back though - fear of the unfamiliar, of missing family and friends (I'm in total denial about this - thinking about it makes me feel like I've been kicked in the stomach), of not being able to justify frivolous clothes purchases since it's not my money (I've been told the 'I've moved countries for you' line can only be pulled out on special occasions, and even then it's considered pretty low).
So today the cold hard reality of the last paycheck and freezing noses is rather underlining the fear. My solution? Mulled Wine, bread and wensleydale with Sian. Gotta make the best of things here - don't underestimate the value of denial.
So I've donned the thermal underwear Helen gave me for my belated birthday present (no joke - it's not sexy but it's necessary Boston Armour. Jeremy is not going to thank her) along with my gloves, leg-warmers, hood, hot-water bottle and 3 duvet covers (comforters) and have only been venturing out to use the toilet and scavenge for food. I know that in a real nuclear winter I'd probably no be venturing out for trivial things like toileting, but I wasn't going to take it that far (although it was tempting).
Also this morning my last paycheck, for a very long time, landed in my bank account. It was nicer than my usual paycheck because I've been fortunate to have been made redundant at a very opportune time. However, looking at it and thinking of visas, weddings, flights and months of unemployment that have to come out of it, reality began to set in and I felt a little sick.
Of course financially I'll be fine - I have that notarised pledge that Jeremy will support me when I move over - and the coldness, well short of sponsoring Climate change or sabotaging the Copenhagen Summit (although they seem to be doing a pretty good job of that themselves), it's somewhat out of my control (but rest assured Jeremy will be acquiescing on the heating - i.e. he'll turn the pilot light on so I can use it). But it's all becoming very very real.
I'm excited - thrilled - to be getting married, to be on the same side of that DamnedAtlantic as my beloved, to have the opportunity to refocus my career path. The fear is creeping back though - fear of the unfamiliar, of missing family and friends (I'm in total denial about this - thinking about it makes me feel like I've been kicked in the stomach), of not being able to justify frivolous clothes purchases since it's not my money (I've been told the 'I've moved countries for you' line can only be pulled out on special occasions, and even then it's considered pretty low).
So today the cold hard reality of the last paycheck and freezing noses is rather underlining the fear. My solution? Mulled Wine, bread and wensleydale with Sian. Gotta make the best of things here - don't underestimate the value of denial.
Wedding invites and the ultimate micro management tool...
I am in love with www.paperlesspost.com.
To clarify, this is because we (I) sent out our wedding invites yesterday. By email. Ok it has a few hang-ups – a couple of people have had to filch their invite out of spam (that’s what we get for going with a program that’s still in beta) and, well, it’s not exactly traditional. But all of these issues are outweighed by 1 million stone (that’s 14000000lbs) because of how easy, eco-friendly and, yes, cheap it is. There is another reason why I love it so much. It satisfies, nay, surfeits, my ever-pressing need for information. Basically it’s a whole new way of spying, because with the tracking system I can see which invites have been received, opened, when they were opened, viewed, when they were viewed... If I were so inclined (which I am) I could refresh the tracker every few minutes to for an uptotheminute update.
Jeremy’s worried.
He sees it as symptomatic of a need to micro manage everything and has already (I’m sure) forseen his henpecked tortured future. I think that given the amount of uncertainty I’ve put up with over the past 6.5 years I should clutch with both hands the opportunity for information. I am NOT good at uncertainty. It eats me up inside. To demonstrate, I thought I’d share with you a recent gmail chat between Jeremy and I. It’s pretty long, but essentially says all you need to know about the two of us:
Me: it's seriously testing my limits of sanity. You better buy me a good bookcase
Jeremy: what is?
Me: the waiting and the not knowing
Jeremy: why? Whats the big deal with that? You gotta get used to that, life is waiting and not knowing
Me: I know, but this is all a little extreme
Jeremy: how so?
Me: it's marriage and moving countries and weddings. people normally know when those things are happening
Jeremy: yeah, but you know they are happening and approx when. whats the big deal what specific day they are?
Me: because I can't plan anything, can't book anything. nothing is definite
Jeremy: plan or book what?
Me: flights / hotels / city halls... my parents don't know if they can come 'cause they don't know when it is
Jeremy: what do they have to do?
Me: what do you mean?
Jeremy: well, what do they have coming up that would keep them from coming
Me: dad's just started a new job, jess has exams… mum's ok I think
Jeremy: so its not uncertainty, it's specific dates. Thats no big deal. Can plan around that
Me: how?
Jeremy: we have some time
Me: not much - I'll die if we're waiting for permission to leave (America) close to the wedding
Jeremy: it will be fine
Me: that's your motto
Jeremy: has it ever not been?
Me: well yes, but let's not go there... things worked out eventually.
Jeremy: So there has been a time where if you worried more, things would have gone better?
Me: you're doing your sermon on the mount routine again
Jeremy: I was just gonna tell you to consider the lillies in the field
Me: or the sparrows
Jeremy: I don't know about them- they weren't referred to in Godspell. But isn't the Sermon on the Mount the standout part of Christianity?
Me: yea
Jeremy: that makes you the worst christian ever
Me: and you a pretty good one
Jeremy: Yeah. You're going to hell for toiling
Me: probably. Although I'm fairly sure the consequence of worry wasn't hell, it was just proved pointless
Jeremy: ok, so you're pointless
Me: some of my worrying is pointless. Ok all. But i don't choose to worry
Jeremy: but you can choose not to
Me: that's a total contradiction - how can I choose not to if I don't choose to in the first place
Jeremy: no it isn't - cause you have to consciously suppress the feeling of worry and say to yourself that you can't affect things out of your control anyways
Me: it's not easy.
Jeremy: no, for you I would also suggest a healthy dose of pot and narcotics
Me: thanks.
Jeremy: np
To clarify, this is because we (I) sent out our wedding invites yesterday. By email. Ok it has a few hang-ups – a couple of people have had to filch their invite out of spam (that’s what we get for going with a program that’s still in beta) and, well, it’s not exactly traditional. But all of these issues are outweighed by 1 million stone (that’s 14000000lbs) because of how easy, eco-friendly and, yes, cheap it is. There is another reason why I love it so much. It satisfies, nay, surfeits, my ever-pressing need for information. Basically it’s a whole new way of spying, because with the tracking system I can see which invites have been received, opened, when they were opened, viewed, when they were viewed... If I were so inclined (which I am) I could refresh the tracker every few minutes to for an uptotheminute update.
Jeremy’s worried.
He sees it as symptomatic of a need to micro manage everything and has already (I’m sure) forseen his henpecked tortured future. I think that given the amount of uncertainty I’ve put up with over the past 6.5 years I should clutch with both hands the opportunity for information. I am NOT good at uncertainty. It eats me up inside. To demonstrate, I thought I’d share with you a recent gmail chat between Jeremy and I. It’s pretty long, but essentially says all you need to know about the two of us:
Me: it's seriously testing my limits of sanity. You better buy me a good bookcase
Jeremy: what is?
Me: the waiting and the not knowing
Jeremy: why? Whats the big deal with that? You gotta get used to that, life is waiting and not knowing
Me: I know, but this is all a little extreme
Jeremy: how so?
Me: it's marriage and moving countries and weddings. people normally know when those things are happening
Jeremy: yeah, but you know they are happening and approx when. whats the big deal what specific day they are?
Me: because I can't plan anything, can't book anything. nothing is definite
Jeremy: plan or book what?
Me: flights / hotels / city halls... my parents don't know if they can come 'cause they don't know when it is
Jeremy: what do they have to do?
Me: what do you mean?
Jeremy: well, what do they have coming up that would keep them from coming
Me: dad's just started a new job, jess has exams… mum's ok I think
Jeremy: so its not uncertainty, it's specific dates. Thats no big deal. Can plan around that
Me: how?
Jeremy: we have some time
Me: not much - I'll die if we're waiting for permission to leave (America) close to the wedding
Jeremy: it will be fine
Me: that's your motto
Jeremy: has it ever not been?
Me: well yes, but let's not go there... things worked out eventually.
Jeremy: So there has been a time where if you worried more, things would have gone better?
Me: you're doing your sermon on the mount routine again
Jeremy: I was just gonna tell you to consider the lillies in the field
Me: or the sparrows
Jeremy: I don't know about them- they weren't referred to in Godspell. But isn't the Sermon on the Mount the standout part of Christianity?
Me: yea
Jeremy: that makes you the worst christian ever
Me: and you a pretty good one
Jeremy: Yeah. You're going to hell for toiling
Me: probably. Although I'm fairly sure the consequence of worry wasn't hell, it was just proved pointless
Jeremy: ok, so you're pointless
Me: some of my worrying is pointless. Ok all. But i don't choose to worry
Jeremy: but you can choose not to
Me: that's a total contradiction - how can I choose not to if I don't choose to in the first place
Jeremy: no it isn't - cause you have to consciously suppress the feeling of worry and say to yourself that you can't affect things out of your control anyways
Me: it's not easy.
Jeremy: no, for you I would also suggest a healthy dose of pot and narcotics
Me: thanks.
Jeremy: np
More change required.
Today I was waiting for a bus after having gone up to Spitalfields Market to battle through the cooler-than-cool crowds, in search of shoes to wear with wedding dress number one (one of the benefits of getting married concurrently with getting a visa is that I get to have 2 weddings - one very small informal one at a city hall in the US, in order to get wed within the visa stipulated 3-months and one large slightly more formal one in August 2010 after the visa dust has settled).
It had been busy and stressful and my Leon soup, usually unbelievably delicious, was not up to par. Also, I was suffering from my own stupidity because I'd once again decided to pretend it wasn't December in England and had worn ballet pumps out and, naturally, it had rained.
The bus was late and I was starting to doubt its existence. I was feeling particularly misanthropic -the effect cold wet stupid feet tend to inspire. Then I turned and saw that a not-particularly-clean-probably-homeless man had fallen on the escalator. He was lying at the top and people were just stepping over and around him.
Like any good Samaritan, I looked around to see if there was anyone else who was going to help. Then internally sighed when I saw there wasn't.
So I swallowed down my various contagion fears, felt thankful I had gloves on, checked my bag was closed and went over to help. I wasn't very helpful - mostly because I didn't want to get too close and also because I'm ridiculously weak - but once I'd gone over another girl stopped to help and between us we managed to get him on his feet, at which point Police officers came over and I gratefully ducked back to waiting for the bus.
So, not a particularly eventful story. And I'm not telling it to look good because to be honest I don't think me partially suppressing my fear of smelly dirty people in order to rather ineffectively help someone who's just collapsed makes me look particularly good. I'm telling it because afterwards I wanted to cry.
What sort of a world is it where a person looks 'good' for stopping to help someone who has fallen over and isn't getting up? I'm tired of this London-life, scared that for a moment there today I debated whether to help or not and hoped I wouldn't have to, ashamed that after helping all I could think of until I got home was washing my hands.
But it's not really a London thing - I'm fairly confident the same scenario would happen in Boston, except there fallen-over-homeless-people have a much higher chance of freezing to death. Something about cities turns people into zombies as they march between home and office, office and bar. Maybe it's the sheer volume of people we pass every day, it makes us forget each other's humanity. I frequently find myself walking behind slightly-too-slow people, mentally hurling insults at them in my frustration, glaring at tourists who inexplicably stop in the middle of pavements, swearing under my breath at people who get on the tube before I've got off.
I need to step off this particular escalator.
But how? I'm currently just swapping one city life for another. But moving away to the country isn't really the answer. Just because I wouldn't have to walk past homeless people every day would not mean they didn't exist elsewhere.
So what is the answer? How do I silence this irritating conscience of mine? I think my master plan of leaving the voluntary sector and making a ton of money may have just come to a grinding halt...although I'm not convinced that working for a charity is the answer. Jeremy doesn't work for a non-profit and he's a damn sight more charitable than I am. I could always corporate it up and give all my money away, I'm just not sure I trust myself not to get seduced by the possibility of new clothes and houses and floor to ceiling bookcases.
I want change - more change than moving countries and getting married is going to bring. Watch this space. Although I'll almost certainly disappoint.
Having said that, the man I'm marrying (he's a man in this context, boy the rest of the time) is one of the most socially responsible people I know, and he's pretty good at calling me out on selfishness. So maybe getting married will bring the change I need - he'll certainly mock my anti-bacterial-gel addiction into submission, that much is certain.
It had been busy and stressful and my Leon soup, usually unbelievably delicious, was not up to par. Also, I was suffering from my own stupidity because I'd once again decided to pretend it wasn't December in England and had worn ballet pumps out and, naturally, it had rained.
The bus was late and I was starting to doubt its existence. I was feeling particularly misanthropic -the effect cold wet stupid feet tend to inspire. Then I turned and saw that a not-particularly-clean-probably-homeless man had fallen on the escalator. He was lying at the top and people were just stepping over and around him.
Like any good Samaritan, I looked around to see if there was anyone else who was going to help. Then internally sighed when I saw there wasn't.
So I swallowed down my various contagion fears, felt thankful I had gloves on, checked my bag was closed and went over to help. I wasn't very helpful - mostly because I didn't want to get too close and also because I'm ridiculously weak - but once I'd gone over another girl stopped to help and between us we managed to get him on his feet, at which point Police officers came over and I gratefully ducked back to waiting for the bus.
So, not a particularly eventful story. And I'm not telling it to look good because to be honest I don't think me partially suppressing my fear of smelly dirty people in order to rather ineffectively help someone who's just collapsed makes me look particularly good. I'm telling it because afterwards I wanted to cry.
What sort of a world is it where a person looks 'good' for stopping to help someone who has fallen over and isn't getting up? I'm tired of this London-life, scared that for a moment there today I debated whether to help or not and hoped I wouldn't have to, ashamed that after helping all I could think of until I got home was washing my hands.
But it's not really a London thing - I'm fairly confident the same scenario would happen in Boston, except there fallen-over-homeless-people have a much higher chance of freezing to death. Something about cities turns people into zombies as they march between home and office, office and bar. Maybe it's the sheer volume of people we pass every day, it makes us forget each other's humanity. I frequently find myself walking behind slightly-too-slow people, mentally hurling insults at them in my frustration, glaring at tourists who inexplicably stop in the middle of pavements, swearing under my breath at people who get on the tube before I've got off.
I need to step off this particular escalator.
But how? I'm currently just swapping one city life for another. But moving away to the country isn't really the answer. Just because I wouldn't have to walk past homeless people every day would not mean they didn't exist elsewhere.
So what is the answer? How do I silence this irritating conscience of mine? I think my master plan of leaving the voluntary sector and making a ton of money may have just come to a grinding halt...although I'm not convinced that working for a charity is the answer. Jeremy doesn't work for a non-profit and he's a damn sight more charitable than I am. I could always corporate it up and give all my money away, I'm just not sure I trust myself not to get seduced by the possibility of new clothes and houses and floor to ceiling bookcases.
I want change - more change than moving countries and getting married is going to bring. Watch this space. Although I'll almost certainly disappoint.
Having said that, the man I'm marrying (he's a man in this context, boy the rest of the time) is one of the most socially responsible people I know, and he's pretty good at calling me out on selfishness. So maybe getting married will bring the change I need - he'll certainly mock my anti-bacterial-gel addiction into submission, that much is certain.
Leaving (part 4): TimeBank (part 1, possibly of 2, we'll see)
Yesterday I had my work leaving do. 'Leaving' in the sense of I-will-be-leaving-soon-but-not-quite-yet, as Christmas parties have rather got in the way of the big final never-coming-back send off. But what it lacked in tearful farewells it made up for in (hard [that's American for con-alcohol]) cider.
It was fun. I somehow managed to get tipsy-but-not-drunk-enough-to-have-a-hangover, which left me free to laugh at the antics of my colleagues, and to be acutely aware of quite how much Sian was making me zigzag as we walked 'home' arm in arm.
Leaving TimeBank. It's been a long process of detachment - I've known since February that I would be leaving once the visa came through and since October that I'd be leaving in December. And yet I'm not sure the reality will quite hit me until after Christmas when everyone's back at work and I'm sleeping til 10am every day and spending my time curled up in front of fires reading War and Peace (aka Grazia).
TimeBank was my first proper job. Sian likes to tell me that they hired me because they liked my hair (I was doing my best Heidi impression that day, with a plait [braid] wrapped around my head). She's said it a few too many times for me to think she's joking and that I was really hired on the basis of my clear talent. Whoever knew a plait could be so fortuitous.
Since then, I hope I've proved myself to be talented in more than hair engineering. I've worked with all sorts - from refugees to Sony employees, been to countless volunteer recruitment fairs, cleared more scrub than I'd like to remember, spent far too much time in Sunderland, seen the inside of a Manchester Casualty and somewhere along the line someone was silly enough to put 'manager' within my job title (partnership manager mind you - not quite the power trip I'd like, but still - it allows scope for exaggeration).
In many ways I've grown up at TimeBank - it gave me my first paycheck, which led to my first rent payment (I'd been a poor student, sponging off my parents and Jeremy up til then). I've grown in confidence, shed my fear of the telephone (more or less. I still occasionally make important calls elsewhere so that no one's there to hear my stumble over my words and sound like a total muppet) and have a passing understanding of budget management (by 'passing' I mean I befriended with someone on the finance team who pretends my stupid questions are perfectly reasonable).
The whole place is teeming with history (and mice). My desk is buried in memories and in-jokes (actually it's mostly buried in paper and tupperware and the odd coffee cup growing mould). There's my blue-tack mouse (made one day in a boring meeting and then I didn't have the heart to squish him) and my two pottery mice (made in an 'away day'- we thought they might guard against the real mice. They didn't.) and the post-it reminder of the refugee mentee whose no.1 goal in the UK was to catch a fish, and whose action plan consisted of 'go fishing'.
I'm entrenched. Literally.
And now I'm leaving. I doubt I'll ever again be lucky enough to work with my closest friends. I'm certain I'll never work anywhere again that lets me compress my working week into 4 days. The term 'My Friday' is a thing of the past and will be eliminated from my personal dictionary- I may hold a mourning ceremony next friday to mark the last one's passing.
Ugh and I have to get a new job. One without Fridays (or with them, but in a bad way) and friends and (hopefully) mice. I have to start the whole application process all over again. Granted I'm going to have a significant break from it all, but on Jeremy's notarised I-promise-not-to-let-Hannah-become-a-drain-on-society form (one of our many essential documents for the visa interview...which, by the way, has finally been scheduled for the 15th January), it specifies that he intends to "furnish room and board until Ms Stratton gains employment - a period expected to be 3-6 months". So it's not really that long before I'm no longer readily furnished with room and board, and I'm not looking forward to trying to convince people to employ me again.
Critically, I now have more than 'waitress' and 'shop assistant' on my CV, which will hopefully make the transition into my next job a little easier than last time (although rest assured I'll be plaiting my hair, just in case). Meanwhile, I'm going to spend the next week appreciating TimeBank and the friends and familiarity I have there. And maybe spend a few days exhuming my desk ready for the next sucker.
It was fun. I somehow managed to get tipsy-but-not-drunk-enough-to-have-a-hangover, which left me free to laugh at the antics of my colleagues, and to be acutely aware of quite how much Sian was making me zigzag as we walked 'home' arm in arm.
Leaving TimeBank. It's been a long process of detachment - I've known since February that I would be leaving once the visa came through and since October that I'd be leaving in December. And yet I'm not sure the reality will quite hit me until after Christmas when everyone's back at work and I'm sleeping til 10am every day and spending my time curled up in front of fires reading War and Peace (aka Grazia).
TimeBank was my first proper job. Sian likes to tell me that they hired me because they liked my hair (I was doing my best Heidi impression that day, with a plait [braid] wrapped around my head). She's said it a few too many times for me to think she's joking and that I was really hired on the basis of my clear talent. Whoever knew a plait could be so fortuitous.
Since then, I hope I've proved myself to be talented in more than hair engineering. I've worked with all sorts - from refugees to Sony employees, been to countless volunteer recruitment fairs, cleared more scrub than I'd like to remember, spent far too much time in Sunderland, seen the inside of a Manchester Casualty and somewhere along the line someone was silly enough to put 'manager' within my job title (partnership manager mind you - not quite the power trip I'd like, but still - it allows scope for exaggeration).
In many ways I've grown up at TimeBank - it gave me my first paycheck, which led to my first rent payment (I'd been a poor student, sponging off my parents and Jeremy up til then). I've grown in confidence, shed my fear of the telephone (more or less. I still occasionally make important calls elsewhere so that no one's there to hear my stumble over my words and sound like a total muppet) and have a passing understanding of budget management (by 'passing' I mean I befriended with someone on the finance team who pretends my stupid questions are perfectly reasonable).
The whole place is teeming with history (and mice). My desk is buried in memories and in-jokes (actually it's mostly buried in paper and tupperware and the odd coffee cup growing mould). There's my blue-tack mouse (made one day in a boring meeting and then I didn't have the heart to squish him) and my two pottery mice (made in an 'away day'- we thought they might guard against the real mice. They didn't.) and the post-it reminder of the refugee mentee whose no.1 goal in the UK was to catch a fish, and whose action plan consisted of 'go fishing'.
I'm entrenched. Literally.
And now I'm leaving. I doubt I'll ever again be lucky enough to work with my closest friends. I'm certain I'll never work anywhere again that lets me compress my working week into 4 days. The term 'My Friday' is a thing of the past and will be eliminated from my personal dictionary- I may hold a mourning ceremony next friday to mark the last one's passing.
Ugh and I have to get a new job. One without Fridays (or with them, but in a bad way) and friends and (hopefully) mice. I have to start the whole application process all over again. Granted I'm going to have a significant break from it all, but on Jeremy's notarised I-promise-not-to-let-Hannah-become-a-drain-on-society form (one of our many essential documents for the visa interview...which, by the way, has finally been scheduled for the 15th January), it specifies that he intends to "furnish room and board until Ms Stratton gains employment - a period expected to be 3-6 months". So it's not really that long before I'm no longer readily furnished with room and board, and I'm not looking forward to trying to convince people to employ me again.
Critically, I now have more than 'waitress' and 'shop assistant' on my CV, which will hopefully make the transition into my next job a little easier than last time (although rest assured I'll be plaiting my hair, just in case). Meanwhile, I'm going to spend the next week appreciating TimeBank and the friends and familiarity I have there. And maybe spend a few days exhuming my desk ready for the next sucker.
Volunteering...sort of
This week I have been volunteering. I use the term 'volunteering' loosely, because in actual fact TimeBank give me 5 days a year to volunteer...so essentially I'm getting paid...so it's technically not volunteering but rather doing-something-different-for-a-few-days-but-still-getting-paid-ing. I've also cheated the system slightly as I didn't have to apply for this volunteering opportunity - I just asked Sian if I could come along to work with her for a bit.
Basically this is an entirely bogus volunteering opportunity and, as a colleague pointed out, I'm actually just paying Sian rent in-kind...
But all of that takes away the essential feel-good-martyr factor that should accompany volunteering so I'm overlooking it and instead pretending I'm sacrificing a lie-in for being in an office and compiling statistics on refugee academics (reinforcing the humility I learned on Saturday, although not moaning is boring so I've decided I can still moan as long as there's an implied caveat that I know I'm pretty lucky really).
I've decided to 'volunteer' for entirely selfish and mercenary reasons: a) it gets me out of the office and therefore decreases the number of days I have left at work and b) I decided that should I apply for a job in the voluntary sector in the US, I'd look slightly more qualified if I actually had some volunteering on my CV. I was also curious to find out what exactly I've been encouraging people to do for the past 2.5 years.
And the outcome? Well volunteering in an office is much the same as working in an office except I felt more entitled to tea breaks. It was strange to have that outsider feeling again - to be the new person who knows nothing (and in being a short-term volunteer no-one's bothered about filling you in either, although I had Sian to ask so that wasn't the biggest deal) and to answer phones and not have a clue what I'm saying or who I'm taking a message for (although to be fair that does occasionally still happen at TimeBank).
Tomorrow I'm back in my comfort zone - placing volunteers rather than being one. But not for much longer. In a little over a month I'll be a chronic 'new girl' in pretty much every aspect of my life - pleading for play-dates and feeling perpetually lost and uncertain. And yet I feel like I'm going home. I guess that's how I know this isn't a big fat mistake. Or maybe that's just what the promise of a real bed after 6 months of sleeping on couches will do to a girl.
Basically this is an entirely bogus volunteering opportunity and, as a colleague pointed out, I'm actually just paying Sian rent in-kind...
But all of that takes away the essential feel-good-martyr factor that should accompany volunteering so I'm overlooking it and instead pretending I'm sacrificing a lie-in for being in an office and compiling statistics on refugee academics (reinforcing the humility I learned on Saturday, although not moaning is boring so I've decided I can still moan as long as there's an implied caveat that I know I'm pretty lucky really).
I've decided to 'volunteer' for entirely selfish and mercenary reasons: a) it gets me out of the office and therefore decreases the number of days I have left at work and b) I decided that should I apply for a job in the voluntary sector in the US, I'd look slightly more qualified if I actually had some volunteering on my CV. I was also curious to find out what exactly I've been encouraging people to do for the past 2.5 years.
And the outcome? Well volunteering in an office is much the same as working in an office except I felt more entitled to tea breaks. It was strange to have that outsider feeling again - to be the new person who knows nothing (and in being a short-term volunteer no-one's bothered about filling you in either, although I had Sian to ask so that wasn't the biggest deal) and to answer phones and not have a clue what I'm saying or who I'm taking a message for (although to be fair that does occasionally still happen at TimeBank).
Tomorrow I'm back in my comfort zone - placing volunteers rather than being one. But not for much longer. In a little over a month I'll be a chronic 'new girl' in pretty much every aspect of my life - pleading for play-dates and feeling perpetually lost and uncertain. And yet I feel like I'm going home. I guess that's how I know this isn't a big fat mistake. Or maybe that's just what the promise of a real bed after 6 months of sleeping on couches will do to a girl.
Dreamy Waffle.
I don't think I've fully woken up today. I feel like I'm walking through the day a step removed from reality, which is dangerous when shopping in Waitrose because the exorbitant prices don't seem quite as heart-stoppingly ridiculous as they should. Perhaps I'll wake up and realise nothing of today ever actually happened. Maybe all life is a dream - and if it is then I pity the 'person' dreaming my life because I've recently been watching an inordinate amount of Brothers and Sisters.
I've always had difficulty distinguishing dream from reality. When I was little the wind often used to pick me up and carry me quite long distances. Now rationally I know that unless I was living in hurricane central (which I wasn't, and the wind of my childhood was rather gentle and dignified rather than dashing me into rocks) then this must have been a dream. Similarly the time a tiger woke me up and scared me half to death probably never happened. I also have a memory of my mum and dad driving off into the distance in a red sports car, leaving me behind forever. Unless I was adopted after this incident and that is a latent memory, I'm guessing that never happened either.
One of my pet-ideas is that there should be a word coined for experiences we have in dreams, because dreams give us an idea of how things would feel and yet they clearly don't qualify as real experiences. I have never been chased by the Gestapo, although they feature fairly regularly in my unconscious, and the only time I've ever been paralysed with fear was in nightmares (the Gestapo were quite often present at the time).
I know that talking about dreams is quite bad manners. I have a friend who the moment he hears mention of 'I dreamt last night', declares he does not listen to people's dreams and walks away. I keep meaning to try this but instead I wind up smiling politely and feigning interest. Sebastian Faulks goes out of his way in each and every one of his books (and I've read all of the except for his most recent one) to weave into them somewhere the fact that hearing about other people's dreams is the most boring topic on the planet. I'm wondering whether he had a bad experience with a dream-interpreting parent, because it seems like quite a curious thing to mention in every book he's ever written.
And I agree with Sebastian. Hearing about other people's dreams is boring - especially when they're entirely unfollowable and ridiculous - like 'I was on a boat and then I wasn't and you were there only you weren't you and we went shopping and I can't really remember the rest but it was good'.
But every now and again I dream dreams that have true comic value, or are so obviously linked to real anxieties in my every day life (I can't tell you how many dreams I've had about placing volunteers. It's truly tiresome) that they need to be told. Here are a few of the most recent gems, told in a sentence so as to not bore you to tears:
- I had a cat and a mouse and loved them equally only the cat kept trying to kill the mouse.
- My ex-boyfriend got a new girlfriend and she stole all my favourite clothes.
- Jeremy and I were getting married only we were late and then couldn't find the priest.
- An apocalyptic tidal wave was coming and I was trying to pack a suitcase only I couldn't decide what to pack.
Any time I am rude enough to recount my dreams to friends I am told they are anxiety dreams or inadequacy dreams. Maybe I'm anxious about being inadequate. The suitcase one definitely doesn't need an in-depth analysis, although I'm curious to know exactly what the tidal wave stood for - the US Embassy perhaps? Jeremy? America?
I have a feeling I'm now stepping into dangerously dull territory and Sebastian Faulks would not be impressed so I'm going to shut up...I am quite pleased though that my subconscious inadequate anxiety seems to have a sense of humour, which must mean there's some hope.
I've always had difficulty distinguishing dream from reality. When I was little the wind often used to pick me up and carry me quite long distances. Now rationally I know that unless I was living in hurricane central (which I wasn't, and the wind of my childhood was rather gentle and dignified rather than dashing me into rocks) then this must have been a dream. Similarly the time a tiger woke me up and scared me half to death probably never happened. I also have a memory of my mum and dad driving off into the distance in a red sports car, leaving me behind forever. Unless I was adopted after this incident and that is a latent memory, I'm guessing that never happened either.
One of my pet-ideas is that there should be a word coined for experiences we have in dreams, because dreams give us an idea of how things would feel and yet they clearly don't qualify as real experiences. I have never been chased by the Gestapo, although they feature fairly regularly in my unconscious, and the only time I've ever been paralysed with fear was in nightmares (the Gestapo were quite often present at the time).
I know that talking about dreams is quite bad manners. I have a friend who the moment he hears mention of 'I dreamt last night', declares he does not listen to people's dreams and walks away. I keep meaning to try this but instead I wind up smiling politely and feigning interest. Sebastian Faulks goes out of his way in each and every one of his books (and I've read all of the except for his most recent one) to weave into them somewhere the fact that hearing about other people's dreams is the most boring topic on the planet. I'm wondering whether he had a bad experience with a dream-interpreting parent, because it seems like quite a curious thing to mention in every book he's ever written.
And I agree with Sebastian. Hearing about other people's dreams is boring - especially when they're entirely unfollowable and ridiculous - like 'I was on a boat and then I wasn't and you were there only you weren't you and we went shopping and I can't really remember the rest but it was good'.
But every now and again I dream dreams that have true comic value, or are so obviously linked to real anxieties in my every day life (I can't tell you how many dreams I've had about placing volunteers. It's truly tiresome) that they need to be told. Here are a few of the most recent gems, told in a sentence so as to not bore you to tears:
- I had a cat and a mouse and loved them equally only the cat kept trying to kill the mouse.
- My ex-boyfriend got a new girlfriend and she stole all my favourite clothes.
- Jeremy and I were getting married only we were late and then couldn't find the priest.
- An apocalyptic tidal wave was coming and I was trying to pack a suitcase only I couldn't decide what to pack.
Any time I am rude enough to recount my dreams to friends I am told they are anxiety dreams or inadequacy dreams. Maybe I'm anxious about being inadequate. The suitcase one definitely doesn't need an in-depth analysis, although I'm curious to know exactly what the tidal wave stood for - the US Embassy perhaps? Jeremy? America?
I have a feeling I'm now stepping into dangerously dull territory and Sebastian Faulks would not be impressed so I'm going to shut up...I am quite pleased though that my subconscious inadequate anxiety seems to have a sense of humour, which must mean there's some hope.
Humbled.
I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been moaning a lot lately. The weather's been crap and cold and while the lack of an address is a great way to ward off chuggers, it's pretty tiring. Sure yesterday I was trying to sound upbeat about one day being able to call both sides of the Atlantic 'home', but really that was just a covert way of moaning about the effort I need to put in to make that happen. Basically I've been a total Eeyore for the past week and everything good has served only to emphasise the bad.
But today I have been put to shame.
Because today I put on my Time Together hat (at TimeBank I have multiple jobs and one of them is helping on a refugee mentoring scheme called Time Together) and set off to the Tower of London to shepherd 15 mentoring pairs around and help supervise the day. I wasn't really in the mood - I was tired and eeyorey and didn't really want to spend my saturday at Tourist Central in the cold.
But then as the day went on and I wandered around the tower exhibitions with refugees from Russia, Eritrea, Columbia, Burma, Syria, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe...all of different ages and stories, all forced to leave their homeland because of situations beyond their control...I was struck a) by how lucky I am and b) by how amazing people are. Here we had people whose life experiences exceed my imaginings and yet who have perservered and remain positive and kind and funny. And the volunteer mentors too - people who give up precious free time to meet with their 'mentees' to try and ease their struggle into life in the UK.
I wonder what the refugees I spent the day with today make of us English - the Tower of London with its displays of Henry VIII (whose nature and rule bears a striking resemblance to Idi Amin, although I don't remember it being taught quite that way in primary school) and crown jewels plundered from other lands, and tourist-ised torture chambers on display for entertainment, totally ignoring the fact that real people suffered real agony there. How strange we must seem, how complacent and naive.
So I thought as an antidote to moaning and in recognition of the many blessings in my life, I'd write the traditional 'thanksgiving' list, just a week or so too late:
I am thankful for:
- Couches. And the owners of those couches - that because of the generosity of friends I have been able to claw my way out of my overdraft and save money for my unemployed future.
- Love. Even if he is American. I've found someone I want to commit to for my entire life, and while it still scares me a little I haven't and he hasn't run for the hills.
- Family. That I have so many people I love who love me and that they are able and willing to travel to see me wherever I go.
- Visas. Well...not for visas exactly (that would be pushing it), but for the relative ease I can get them
- Nightmares... that nightmares are the only place I have ever experienced 'real' fear
After the Tower of London we all congregated in a cafe to talk and warm up. I felt real pride when I explained to the bemused waitress why this disparate group of age and race and culture and language was all together. And it made me realise that what I'm doing with my move to the states- while it feels huge and overwhelming at times - is actually entirely achieveable and I need to shut up with the moaning and get on with it. Or at least moan with the humble knowledge that I'm a total wuss for doing so.
But today I have been put to shame.
Because today I put on my Time Together hat (at TimeBank I have multiple jobs and one of them is helping on a refugee mentoring scheme called Time Together) and set off to the Tower of London to shepherd 15 mentoring pairs around and help supervise the day. I wasn't really in the mood - I was tired and eeyorey and didn't really want to spend my saturday at Tourist Central in the cold.
But then as the day went on and I wandered around the tower exhibitions with refugees from Russia, Eritrea, Columbia, Burma, Syria, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe...all of different ages and stories, all forced to leave their homeland because of situations beyond their control...I was struck a) by how lucky I am and b) by how amazing people are. Here we had people whose life experiences exceed my imaginings and yet who have perservered and remain positive and kind and funny. And the volunteer mentors too - people who give up precious free time to meet with their 'mentees' to try and ease their struggle into life in the UK.
I wonder what the refugees I spent the day with today make of us English - the Tower of London with its displays of Henry VIII (whose nature and rule bears a striking resemblance to Idi Amin, although I don't remember it being taught quite that way in primary school) and crown jewels plundered from other lands, and tourist-ised torture chambers on display for entertainment, totally ignoring the fact that real people suffered real agony there. How strange we must seem, how complacent and naive.
So I thought as an antidote to moaning and in recognition of the many blessings in my life, I'd write the traditional 'thanksgiving' list, just a week or so too late:
I am thankful for:
- Couches. And the owners of those couches - that because of the generosity of friends I have been able to claw my way out of my overdraft and save money for my unemployed future.
- Love. Even if he is American. I've found someone I want to commit to for my entire life, and while it still scares me a little I haven't and he hasn't run for the hills.
- Family. That I have so many people I love who love me and that they are able and willing to travel to see me wherever I go.
- Visas. Well...not for visas exactly (that would be pushing it), but for the relative ease I can get them
- Nightmares... that nightmares are the only place I have ever experienced 'real' fear
After the Tower of London we all congregated in a cafe to talk and warm up. I felt real pride when I explained to the bemused waitress why this disparate group of age and race and culture and language was all together. And it made me realise that what I'm doing with my move to the states- while it feels huge and overwhelming at times - is actually entirely achieveable and I need to shut up with the moaning and get on with it. Or at least moan with the humble knowledge that I'm a total wuss for doing so.
Old New Friends
Today I met up with an old friend from (high) school. She got lost on her way to me so I waited for a while outside London Bridge tube station.
Never do this.
I was a sitting-duck for lost tourist and chuggers alike. However as well as doing my best impression of a good Samaritan, redirecting the lost tourists of London to their desired destinations (and, as usual, suppressing the urge to send them into the depths of Elephant and Castle), I also discovered the best answer anyone can give to a chancing chugger who says they're "not asking you for money - just your name and address so we can send you some literature":
"I don't have an address."
"What?" (looks me up and down to check he hasn't chugged a rough sleeper by accident)
"No address we can send stuff to?" (presumably I don't look like one, although I was wearing fingerless gloves)
"No."
And then he was gone. And I didn't even lie. Brilliant.
So I was feeling quite pleased with myself when my long lost friend showed up.
We had a Good London Day (opposed to a Bad London Day which generally involves things like work and smelly people and rain and occasionally inadvisedly worn ballet pumps) - it was sunny and crisp and there was coffee followed by multiple small pieces of cheese and brownie and ham and spicy chili spread, followed by a rather large Styrofoam cup of hot spiced cider (the real English-with- alcohol-kind. Not the crap you get in US Starbucks'...which is yummy, but less fun), followed by a tipsy walk along the river, followed by topped-potato-wedges lunch in Giraffe, followed by shoe shopping and finished with hot chocolate. A better combination of beverages and activities I challenge you to find.
The last time I can properly remember spending time with the longlostfriend was right before I flew to America to visit Jeremy and she was about to go off and gap-year in Africa. We were sat on my bed in Somerton talking about Love and the future and various moral dilemmas (turns out we both went with the funner, less moral option). Cut to 6.5 years later and there's rather a lot to catch up on.
So I feel like today I've given out an edited (for brevity's rather than secrecy's sake ) history of my adult life, and have received a recounted history in return. It's strange to recap on major events to someone who probably most keenly remembers me as having poofy mushroom hair and painting my face white to mimic Ariel from the Tempest (for a school drama, not just for the hell of it) and pretending to shoot my maths teacher from the back of the class. It casts a whole old light on things and I can see all the recountable events of my recent-ish life adding up and standing next to this old poofy-haired version of me and happily it makes comfortable sense (thankfully my hair has moved on...most days).
I love how with some people, the connection and kinship is there whether you see them often or not (the writing of this blog was interrupted by a phone call from another long-lost-but-since-well-recovered friend, who I haven't seen in months but who can make me laugh and relax in an instant). It gives me hope. Because I know that in moving I am not losing these special people in my life (that's not to say you all have permission to go and become long-lost on the basis that I'll find you again in the far-off-future - I'm expecting multiple visits, phone calls and presents [yes, presents]) - that when I see them and speak to them the sparkle of shared history and fondness of mutual-understanding will be there without question.
I just hope that if, in the distant and dimly-planned future, we leave the states to live in England that I'll be leaving with this same knowledge of friendships enduring, that I'll have built up shared histories and kinships, that the Atlantic will have stopped feeling like a barrier and instead feel like a link to the two worlds.
Ha, what schmaltz. Who am I kidding? It's always going to be a bloody barrier. But hopefully I'll be happy whichever side of it I'm on.
Never do this.
I was a sitting-duck for lost tourist and chuggers alike. However as well as doing my best impression of a good Samaritan, redirecting the lost tourists of London to their desired destinations (and, as usual, suppressing the urge to send them into the depths of Elephant and Castle), I also discovered the best answer anyone can give to a chancing chugger who says they're "not asking you for money - just your name and address so we can send you some literature":
"I don't have an address."
"What?" (looks me up and down to check he hasn't chugged a rough sleeper by accident)
"No address we can send stuff to?" (presumably I don't look like one, although I was wearing fingerless gloves)
"No."
And then he was gone. And I didn't even lie. Brilliant.
So I was feeling quite pleased with myself when my long lost friend showed up.
We had a Good London Day (opposed to a Bad London Day which generally involves things like work and smelly people and rain and occasionally inadvisedly worn ballet pumps) - it was sunny and crisp and there was coffee followed by multiple small pieces of cheese and brownie and ham and spicy chili spread, followed by a rather large Styrofoam cup of hot spiced cider (the real English-with- alcohol-kind. Not the crap you get in US Starbucks'...which is yummy, but less fun), followed by a tipsy walk along the river, followed by topped-potato-wedges lunch in Giraffe, followed by shoe shopping and finished with hot chocolate. A better combination of beverages and activities I challenge you to find.
The last time I can properly remember spending time with the longlostfriend was right before I flew to America to visit Jeremy and she was about to go off and gap-year in Africa. We were sat on my bed in Somerton talking about Love and the future and various moral dilemmas (turns out we both went with the funner, less moral option). Cut to 6.5 years later and there's rather a lot to catch up on.
So I feel like today I've given out an edited (for brevity's rather than secrecy's sake ) history of my adult life, and have received a recounted history in return. It's strange to recap on major events to someone who probably most keenly remembers me as having poofy mushroom hair and painting my face white to mimic Ariel from the Tempest (for a school drama, not just for the hell of it) and pretending to shoot my maths teacher from the back of the class. It casts a whole old light on things and I can see all the recountable events of my recent-ish life adding up and standing next to this old poofy-haired version of me and happily it makes comfortable sense (thankfully my hair has moved on...most days).
I love how with some people, the connection and kinship is there whether you see them often or not (the writing of this blog was interrupted by a phone call from another long-lost-but-since-well-recovered friend, who I haven't seen in months but who can make me laugh and relax in an instant). It gives me hope. Because I know that in moving I am not losing these special people in my life (that's not to say you all have permission to go and become long-lost on the basis that I'll find you again in the far-off-future - I'm expecting multiple visits, phone calls and presents [yes, presents]) - that when I see them and speak to them the sparkle of shared history and fondness of mutual-understanding will be there without question.
I just hope that if, in the distant and dimly-planned future, we leave the states to live in England that I'll be leaving with this same knowledge of friendships enduring, that I'll have built up shared histories and kinships, that the Atlantic will have stopped feeling like a barrier and instead feel like a link to the two worlds.
Ha, what schmaltz. Who am I kidding? It's always going to be a bloody barrier. But hopefully I'll be happy whichever side of it I'm on.
Constructive moaning.
At 2.30pm today I looked outside and thought the world was ending. Or that I’d somehow been transported back to Dickensian times to a London suffocating in smog . Or that there had been a been a solar eclipse I didn't know about (momentary flashback - In the eclipse of 1999 my mum had seen something on Blue Peter about using a colander to look at the sun and the possibility of dogs howling…so she stuck a colander on her head and howled at the sun. Still makes me smile.). Or at the very least that I’d been transported to Scandinavia or some other goes-dark-all-day country.
But no, it was just winter and I was unimpressed.
“How can it be dark at 2.30?” I exclaimed. And I momentarily thought "that’s ok, I’m leaving the country soon", before I realised (with a rather loud £$&*!) that while yes, I am leaving the country, I’m going to Boston,where not only will it be darker, it will be colder too, with a heck of a lot more snow. My friend / colleague /parent-of-daughter-with-stolen-princess-bed is about to embark on a round the (sunny) world adventure with her husband and 3 year old in tow, and overheard my whole conversation with myself. The grin on her face she watched it dawn on me that I was not escaping the cold and the dark but she was, was sickening.
This weather depression was worsened on my trudge home from work- bad enough that it was raining, but I made the situation 1000 times worse by being a stupid person. I mean seriously, who wears ballet pumps in December? I made myself feel better by cooking a yummy thai soup when I got 'home' (which was,as marc pointed out, my 6th liquidised meal of the week).
Now I know I’ve moaned about English weather already. And I know I’ve moaned about the cold in Boston already. But it’s all a little ridiculous so I’m going to moan again. Actually no, I won’t moan, I’ll make it constructive and construct a list of reasons why we should move to California:
1. (of course) It’s sunny
2. It doesn’t rain
3. It doesn’t snow
4. We’d save on heating bills
5. People are happier there because they’re warm
6. I’d save on fake-tan expenditure
7. People would be more likely to visit me because it’s a good holiday destination… and they’d even visit me in Winter (because there isn’t one).
8. We wouldn’t get rickets
9. We’d be that much closer to Hawaii
10. We’d be that much closer to Mexico
11. I’d be that much closer to George
12. and Patrick
13. And ummm (shock confession) Hugh (noticing a trend here...might have to get Jeremy a stethoscope)
14. I wouldn’t need to highlight my hair because the sun would do it for me (not that I do highlight it anyway, but if I was so inclined, I wouldn’t need to)
15. I’d lose weight because when I’m hot I’m not hungry
16. I’d exercise more because if I had to wear a bikini on a regular basis next to tanned Californian types, I’d have an incentive.
(Basically I’d be tanned, blonde(ish), fit and skinny)
17.There are elephant seals, which are awesome.
18. I could learn to surf (the possibility would be enough for me)
19. The best sushi restaurant I've ever been to is there, complete with mariachi singers
20. The sun doesn't just get diluted by ever darkening clouds until it disappears into night - it shines all day and then promises to return by a last burning stand before the stars come out
Of course there are negatives to California. There's the small matter of earthquakes and the proximity of Paris Hilton and the fact that it's double the distance from England . But I figure an 11 hour flight isn't much different from an 8 hour one, and for year-round sunshine I can get over the threat of house-collapse and pouting heiresses.
Now all I need to do is convince Jeremy.
Oh and ignore the fact that moving 3000 miles twice in a year is a definite overestimation of my mouth:chew ratio.
Dammit.
I could just about forgive Jeremy being an American if he lived somewhere sunny. As it is I'm just going to have to resent him everytime it rains / snows / is cold / grey / gloomy for ever more. And I better train myself not to wear ballet pumps in the rain while I'm at it. And maybe learn some more soup recipes.
Waiting Waiting Waiting...
Another day and no visa-post. This shouldn't surprise me. On Friday I succumbed to the make-as-much-money-out-of-the-visa-suckers-as-possible system and paid out the extortionate £1.20 per minute charge to call the US embassy (or rather, a call centre in Glasgow representing the US embassy) and they informed me that while I have qualified for an interview (which must mean I'm HIV / TB free, which is good to know), I wont hear for another 2 to 4 weeks when that interview is. But, like a half starved pigeon that gets fed sporadically, I check constantly just in case.
The waiting is wearing thin. It was never supposed to have lasted this long. Originally, I came back to England (in 2007) with the plan that Jeremy would join me within 6 months. Visas and jobs and life got in the way and, well, that didn’t happen. Then we got engaged in February this year and I made over-optimistic plans to move over within 6 months, and errrr that didn’t work out either. Now I’m not making plans (I’m a big fat liar). I have surrendered to the 'Great We’ll See’ (bollocks I have) and am sitting on my hands and waiting for the visa-gods to anoint me (I’m jumping up and down and waving my hands around trying to get their attention).
It’s driving me insane.
I am not a patient person. Stubborn? Yes. Patient? No. Which makes for an interesting combination. Waiting becomes not an act of passive patience but one of persistent stubborn endurance. I rant and I rail and I stamp my feet like Veruca Salt on the inside, all the while maintaining a look of benign calm on the outside (well, a lot of the time…I have been known to stamp my feet in frustration, but normally only in front of Jeremy and my family).
At times it’s had the feeling of waiting in the rain for a bus, when you know it might be quicker to walk but you’ve waited too long to give up because the bus might be right around the corner. Although that’s not the best analogy because walking isn’t really an option – sitting down and crying is about the only option I can see and that’s not particularly constructive. Anyway, the bus is around the corner. I can see it (by standing in the middle of oncoming traffic and peeking around the corner). It’s sat there, with its driver, watching me in the rain and having a sneaky fag (Cigarette! That means Cigarette!) whilst obstinately waiting until it’s exactly the right time to move the 5 foot to the bus stop and open up the doors and take all my money.
I’m slightly concerned that by the time the bus doors open I’ll have gone completely loopy. The pressure is mounting. As usual, I’ve overestimated my mouth capacity and bitten off more than I can chew. The living out of suitcases and wedding planning and emigration and job searching and goodbyes and homelessness and missing Jeremy and hair-care are all mounting up and I wouldn’t be surprised if steam started coming out of my ears.
The problem is there’s no solution other than to suck it up and wait and hope that at the end of it all my mental faculties will still be intact. Oh and tell Jeremy every 5 minutes how fed up I am of waiting. That helps a little.
The waiting is wearing thin. It was never supposed to have lasted this long. Originally, I came back to England (in 2007) with the plan that Jeremy would join me within 6 months. Visas and jobs and life got in the way and, well, that didn’t happen. Then we got engaged in February this year and I made over-optimistic plans to move over within 6 months, and errrr that didn’t work out either. Now I’m not making plans (I’m a big fat liar). I have surrendered to the 'Great We’ll See’ (bollocks I have) and am sitting on my hands and waiting for the visa-gods to anoint me (I’m jumping up and down and waving my hands around trying to get their attention).
It’s driving me insane.
I am not a patient person. Stubborn? Yes. Patient? No. Which makes for an interesting combination. Waiting becomes not an act of passive patience but one of persistent stubborn endurance. I rant and I rail and I stamp my feet like Veruca Salt on the inside, all the while maintaining a look of benign calm on the outside (well, a lot of the time…I have been known to stamp my feet in frustration, but normally only in front of Jeremy and my family).
At times it’s had the feeling of waiting in the rain for a bus, when you know it might be quicker to walk but you’ve waited too long to give up because the bus might be right around the corner. Although that’s not the best analogy because walking isn’t really an option – sitting down and crying is about the only option I can see and that’s not particularly constructive. Anyway, the bus is around the corner. I can see it (by standing in the middle of oncoming traffic and peeking around the corner). It’s sat there, with its driver, watching me in the rain and having a sneaky fag (Cigarette! That means Cigarette!) whilst obstinately waiting until it’s exactly the right time to move the 5 foot to the bus stop and open up the doors and take all my money.
I’m slightly concerned that by the time the bus doors open I’ll have gone completely loopy. The pressure is mounting. As usual, I’ve overestimated my mouth capacity and bitten off more than I can chew. The living out of suitcases and wedding planning and emigration and job searching and goodbyes and homelessness and missing Jeremy and hair-care are all mounting up and I wouldn’t be surprised if steam started coming out of my ears.
The problem is there’s no solution other than to suck it up and wait and hope that at the end of it all my mental faculties will still be intact. Oh and tell Jeremy every 5 minutes how fed up I am of waiting. That helps a little.
Leaving (part 3): My Sister
Yesterday my sister came to town. Not to visit me you understand - she had a Camp America (organisation which recruits hapless English young-adults and ships them off to the states to be camp counsellors, supervising American youths for a summer...aka my worst nightmare) Reunion and needed to kill time before meeting up with her real friends. But regardless of being an afterthought to her weekend's plans, I was happy to see her.
I was five and a half when Jess was born. She came as a bit of a shock (to me, I'm pretty sure my parents planned her) - my quiet world was interrupted by this screaming mass of curly attitude - I had to move out of my newly-flowery-papered bedroom (my mum swears she told me I was choosing the paper for the new baby - I do not recall this) to accommodate the wailing monster and I decided the only remedy to this new noisy presence was to ignore it.
Only Jess isn't particularly easy to ignore.
We're not particularly similar, Jess and I. Apart from the curls, (any argument between the two of us is referred to as curly warfare by my friends) we couldn't be more different. While I intently read book after book as a child, with near religious zeal (my mum once hid my books because she was worried I wasn't playing enough. I found them), Jess was busy causing havoc and demanding the world's attention. Even now, everything she does / says is done at warp speed and the rest of us are left out of breath just trying to follow the conversation / her progress across the room.
So I wouldn't say she's mellowed with age. But our relationship has changed. While curly warfare certainly still takes place, we have grown to value and respect each other. I've given up ignoring her presence in my life and come to welcome it. The older sister reflex has kicked in and I feel a strangely fierce sense of protectiveness over her.
There is an element of irony here. Growing up, Jess was the confident one - on French family holidays, when mum and dad asked us to go get the bread (in my memory we went running off unsupervised into town and came back laden with loaves. I'm guessing I've edited this memory somewhat because this doesn't sound like a my-mum thing to permit), it was Jess who would march without fear into the boulangerie and request 'pain-au-chocolat' while I looked awkwardly at my ten-year-old feet in fear that someone would realise I couldn't actually speak french fluently.
Unsurprisingly, Jess was far cooler than me in school. Thankfully I left the year she started or she would only have further highlighted my cool-deficiency. She learnt to drive as soon as she turned 17 (I, if you recall, am still summoning the courage to book lessons) and is now studying a degree that will actually qualify her for an actual profession - none of your fluffy English Lit / International Relations crap for Jess. My little sister is far better equipped to tackle life than I will ever be, and yet I want to wrap her up in cotton wool and keep the big bad world away from her.
But, as she reminded me yesterday, I'm buggering off to America. And while my powers of protectiveness aren't particularly strong in the UK, at least I can check in on her, buy her lunch and quiz her on the various marauding men interested in her. From January I'll be limited to phone interrogations, and neither of us is particularly good on the phone.
Then I remember an episode in yesterday's visit which should serve as a reminder to me of her capable-ness and my ineptitude.
We'd stopped into the Tate Modern to check out the Turbine Hall and do a whistle stop tour of Surrealism. The current installation in the turbine hall is a great big black box, which visitors can walk into and experience something 'personal and collective, putting considerable trust in the organisation' and other such rubbish. Jess and I entered the darkness, clutching each other's arm and our handbags, for fear of art-loving pick-pockets. Giggling we stumbled through, gaining confidence as our eyes adjusted, walking into the gloom until... I smacked my face right into the back wall, while Jess laughed her head off.
Jess of course, like any other thinking person, had had her hand in front of her face as she walked, so stopped before slamming into the wall. Jess was sensible and prepared. I however was not.
Thinking about it, I don't think I need to worry about Jess at all. While she runs rather than walks through life, at least she's doing so with her hand out in front of her. I do however think she should maybe be worrying about me. If we were to think of the big black box as a life-metaphor, I've gone walking into the unknown and ended up with a sore forehead. Hmmmm. Let's hope this isn't an omen.
Talking to hairdressers
I had my hair cut today. Not that anyone will notice - it has pretty much looked exactly the same since I was 15. Apart from the time I decided to attempt cutting it myself (I know that's what you do aged 2, I did it when I was 22) and even then it looked the same when it was curly - you only saw the damage when I straightened it.
With my upcoming nuptials, the only concession I'm making to the traditional bridal-preparation-regimen is getting my hair cut regularly to ensure its bouncy happy healthiness. I've ditched the straighteners, forbidden myself from going near it with scissors, and promised the Goddess of Weddings to get it cut on a regular basis.
I hate having my hair cut.
I hate having to verbalise what I want, having someone see quite how split-ended my hair is, having to look at myself in the mirror for an hour. But most of all I HATE SMALL TALK. I'm crap at it. I find it so difficult answering the prescription hair-dresser questions, because all the while I'm thinking in my head 'this is boring, why would she ever want to know this?'. However I have discovered the fail-safe, keep-banal-conversation-ticking-over-for-an-entire-haircut conversation topic: yup, you've guessed it, getting married and moving to America.
It's like a hairdresser charm - you can literally hear them breathe a sigh of relief as they realise the conversation is all set for the rest of the hair-cut. And while I may tire of recounting where we met / got engaged / are getting married and how I'm feeling about moving countries etc etc, it's a darn sight better than having to think of what to say about my next holiday (I'm moving countries - I don't get to plan holidays) or my plans for the weekend (sleeping doesn't feel cool enough to tell a hairdresser).
I'm wondering what I'll talk about when all this is over - not only to hairdressers but to all fleeting small-talk-necessitating acquaintances. But then I remember. I'll be in America, with an accent - the ultimate small-talk-tool that immediately distinguishes me as somebody where infinite why/what/how questions can be asked. I'm not too sure how I feel about being immediately singled out by my accent for the rest of time, but being able to have a hairdresser-worthy-topic should help ease the blow. And maybe it'll mean I have healthy happy hair for once.
With my upcoming nuptials, the only concession I'm making to the traditional bridal-preparation-regimen is getting my hair cut regularly to ensure its bouncy happy healthiness. I've ditched the straighteners, forbidden myself from going near it with scissors, and promised the Goddess of Weddings to get it cut on a regular basis.
I hate having my hair cut.
I hate having to verbalise what I want, having someone see quite how split-ended my hair is, having to look at myself in the mirror for an hour. But most of all I HATE SMALL TALK. I'm crap at it. I find it so difficult answering the prescription hair-dresser questions, because all the while I'm thinking in my head 'this is boring, why would she ever want to know this?'. However I have discovered the fail-safe, keep-banal-conversation-ticking-over-for-an-entire-haircut conversation topic: yup, you've guessed it, getting married and moving to America.
It's like a hairdresser charm - you can literally hear them breathe a sigh of relief as they realise the conversation is all set for the rest of the hair-cut. And while I may tire of recounting where we met / got engaged / are getting married and how I'm feeling about moving countries etc etc, it's a darn sight better than having to think of what to say about my next holiday (I'm moving countries - I don't get to plan holidays) or my plans for the weekend (sleeping doesn't feel cool enough to tell a hairdresser).
I'm wondering what I'll talk about when all this is over - not only to hairdressers but to all fleeting small-talk-necessitating acquaintances. But then I remember. I'll be in America, with an accent - the ultimate small-talk-tool that immediately distinguishes me as somebody where infinite why/what/how questions can be asked. I'm not too sure how I feel about being immediately singled out by my accent for the rest of time, but being able to have a hairdresser-worthy-topic should help ease the blow. And maybe it'll mean I have healthy happy hair for once.
The Day of Food...
...Is tomorrow.
Of course Americans know it as "Thanksgiving", but since the original thanks-givers were doing so having deserted with disdain my beloved land, I'm boycotting the name and re-christening it The Day of Food (TDoF).
I'm a big fan of TDoF, if you skirt over its traitorous provenance. It is exactly what it says on the (rechristened) tin: THE Day of Food. All people do all day is eat. And they spend about a week preparing to eat. Everyone together eating - no presents or trees or other distractions - just family and food. And it's a pretty ecumenical Day at that - while the original apostates were Christian, nowadays anyone can get in on the act - all they have to do is like food, family and be nice and appreciative for a day.
So I think we English should reclaim TDof (since its originators, treasonous though they were, were English after all). In fact I think we have more entitlement to this particular day than Americans.
Here's why:
1. Our commitment to Roast Dinner. We've even given it its own dedicated weekday - and all across the country, 100,000s of people cook it religiously every Sunday. So you see, we have experience in cooking such things.
2. Our lack of Sweet Potato pie. I actually like sweet potato pie. As a dessert. That much sugar and marshmallows does not belong with gravy. Sweet potato pie with gravy is the equivalent of eating ummm any dessert with gravy. In fact, I think the fact that Americans do this is reason enough to transferThanksgiving TDoF rights over to the UK.
3. The Roast Potato. The best ever way to cook potatoes and you don't even know what I'm talking about. Find out and maybe we can negotiate.
4. I just remembered the existence of chicken salad (for the English people reading this, it's not chicken-with-salad, it's chicken all mushed up with mayonnaise like tuna-mayo. Nasty.) I know you don't have this for TDoF, but its mere conception is sufficient to eliminate all rights to all things for all time.
OK I've only got 4 reasons, poor effort I know, but I still really like Thanksgiving (TDoF isn't really working for me - I'll just conveniently forget that the Treasonous Ones came up with the name). I've celebrated it every year for the past 7 years now (with and without Americans present), and that takes effort because we don't get the day off work so it means coming home after a full day and cooking Thanksgiving dinner (I tend to skip the turkey tho - I prefer chicken). I've hosted Thanksgivings for upwards of 30 people and over the years I've converted 10s of Englanders to the day. I am a Thanksgiving pioneer and deserve much acclaim.
So I think you Americans should let me keep it. I'll let you celebrate it too, provided you accept it wouldn't be here if it wasn't for England driving out the pilgrims in the first place.
Of course Americans know it as "Thanksgiving", but since the original thanks-givers were doing so having deserted with disdain my beloved land, I'm boycotting the name and re-christening it The Day of Food (TDoF).
I'm a big fan of TDoF, if you skirt over its traitorous provenance. It is exactly what it says on the (rechristened) tin: THE Day of Food. All people do all day is eat. And they spend about a week preparing to eat. Everyone together eating - no presents or trees or other distractions - just family and food. And it's a pretty ecumenical Day at that - while the original apostates were Christian, nowadays anyone can get in on the act - all they have to do is like food, family and be nice and appreciative for a day.
So I think we English should reclaim TDof (since its originators, treasonous though they were, were English after all). In fact I think we have more entitlement to this particular day than Americans.
Here's why:
1. Our commitment to Roast Dinner. We've even given it its own dedicated weekday - and all across the country, 100,000s of people cook it religiously every Sunday. So you see, we have experience in cooking such things.
2. Our lack of Sweet Potato pie. I actually like sweet potato pie. As a dessert. That much sugar and marshmallows does not belong with gravy. Sweet potato pie with gravy is the equivalent of eating ummm any dessert with gravy. In fact, I think the fact that Americans do this is reason enough to transfer
3. The Roast Potato. The best ever way to cook potatoes and you don't even know what I'm talking about. Find out and maybe we can negotiate.
4. I just remembered the existence of chicken salad (for the English people reading this, it's not chicken-with-salad, it's chicken all mushed up with mayonnaise like tuna-mayo. Nasty.) I know you don't have this for TDoF, but its mere conception is sufficient to eliminate all rights to all things for all time.
OK I've only got 4 reasons, poor effort I know, but I still really like Thanksgiving (TDoF isn't really working for me - I'll just conveniently forget that the Treasonous Ones came up with the name). I've celebrated it every year for the past 7 years now (with and without Americans present), and that takes effort because we don't get the day off work so it means coming home after a full day and cooking Thanksgiving dinner (I tend to skip the turkey tho - I prefer chicken). I've hosted Thanksgivings for upwards of 30 people and over the years I've converted 10s of Englanders to the day. I am a Thanksgiving pioneer and deserve much acclaim.
So I think you Americans should let me keep it. I'll let you celebrate it too, provided you accept it wouldn't be here if it wasn't for England driving out the pilgrims in the first place.
Language Etiquette 101
Today, after I'd told him how much I missed him, how much I love him, how I can't wait to move countries for him and be his wife, Jeremy called me cute. CUTE! The cheek of it.
I'm guessing there's a wealth of Americans out there bemused at my outrage and wondering what 'cheek' is.
Well I'll tell you.
Cute is outrageous because over here it is what you call baby rabbits, kittens - everything diminutive and juvenile. It trivialises, belittles and essentially makes me feel like a child with dimples (got that Jeremy? Cute is out of the Love vocab). Basically, if anyone calls me cute when in my wedding dress they run the risk of getting punched in the face.
Cheek is what Jeremy had to call me cute. That's the best explanation I've got. Sorry.
So I thought I'd take this opportunity to communicate a few more words / phrases that translate badly. Think of it as damage limitation so at the wedding all the guests don't start offending each other.
"What's up?" OK so we are fairly familiar with this customary greeting. Primarily because of the highly irritating Budweiser advert of the 90s where frogs imitated frat boys (just realised in some post-posting hyperlink searching that the frog one was a different irritating ad, and actually it was frat boys imitating frat boys). And yet when asked the question 'what's up?' most English people (note I'm not saying British here. We do not call ourselves British.) will give a look of bewilderment. It denotes something should be up. And before we compute that it's just Americans asking us how we are, we first think 'am I being asked if there's something wrong?' and then, when do we catch up and answer the inevitable "nothing (is up)", there's a sense of anti-climax, as if we should be able to have something be up and yet there is nothing of note. In England, instead, we say 'Alright?', which I'll accept is equally puzzling for Americans, but at least the end answer is 'yes thanks' and so ends on a polite affirmative.
"Sure" Now this one drives my mum (mUm) crazy. When asked 'would you like a cup of tea?' or 'can I get you a crumpet', or other such offers of food / assistance, Americans (Jeremy) often reply 'sure'. This is not acceptable. In fact, you're likely to cause serious and long lasting offence. Why? Because we British (I'm pretty sure the Welsh, Irish and Scottish are with me on this one) are a polite species and have had it drilled into us from an early age that when offered something, 'yes' is followed by 'thank you'. 'Sure' is a) bad grammar and b) rude.
"Biscuit" I feel the need to educate Americans and English alike on this one. Mainly because if English people were unfortunate enough to order Tea and Biscuits in the states, they'd be met with a nasty surprise. Biscuits in 'American', are basically bread-rolls. I find this staggering. Even the word 'biscuit' is onomatopoeically bound to be crunchy, and yet you Americans think of them as soft dough balls to be eaten with gravy. If you ever came face to face with a chocolate digestive you'd be ashamed of yourselves. Biscuits are actually essentially cookies, except for when they're not cookies, because we also have differing definitions of what constitutes a 'cookie'. I know I'm not explaining this particularly well. But basically you need to stop calling biscuits biscuits and start calling them lumps-of-bread. OK?
"Jumper" This is NOT, not matter what my future mother-in-law tells me, a dress worn by school-girls, it is a sweater - apart from when said sweater is made from the sort of fabric they make hoodies out of, then the sweater is a sweater. Got it? Good.
"College" / "School" Without going into the English school system at length, suffice to say that college and school are not synonymous with university. They are completely different stages in a person's education and if you ask an English person where they went to school, you'll get the same look of confusion as for 'what's up?' before they remember hearing it used differently on Friends once and catch up.
I hope this irons out some problems. These are the words that trouble me most of all - I'm not going near pronunciation, because, well, we're right, you're wrong and that's all there is to it.
I'm guessing there's a wealth of Americans out there bemused at my outrage and wondering what 'cheek' is.
Well I'll tell you.
Cute is outrageous because over here it is what you call baby rabbits, kittens - everything diminutive and juvenile. It trivialises, belittles and essentially makes me feel like a child with dimples (got that Jeremy? Cute is out of the Love vocab). Basically, if anyone calls me cute when in my wedding dress they run the risk of getting punched in the face.
Cheek is what Jeremy had to call me cute. That's the best explanation I've got. Sorry.
So I thought I'd take this opportunity to communicate a few more words / phrases that translate badly. Think of it as damage limitation so at the wedding all the guests don't start offending each other.
"What's up?" OK so we are fairly familiar with this customary greeting. Primarily because of the highly irritating Budweiser advert of the 90s where frogs imitated frat boys (just realised in some post-posting hyperlink searching that the frog one was a different irritating ad, and actually it was frat boys imitating frat boys). And yet when asked the question 'what's up?' most English people (note I'm not saying British here. We do not call ourselves British.) will give a look of bewilderment. It denotes something should be up. And before we compute that it's just Americans asking us how we are, we first think 'am I being asked if there's something wrong?' and then, when do we catch up and answer the inevitable "nothing (is up)", there's a sense of anti-climax, as if we should be able to have something be up and yet there is nothing of note. In England, instead, we say 'Alright?', which I'll accept is equally puzzling for Americans, but at least the end answer is 'yes thanks' and so ends on a polite affirmative.
"Sure" Now this one drives my mum (mUm) crazy. When asked 'would you like a cup of tea?' or 'can I get you a crumpet', or other such offers of food / assistance, Americans (Jeremy) often reply 'sure'. This is not acceptable. In fact, you're likely to cause serious and long lasting offence. Why? Because we British (I'm pretty sure the Welsh, Irish and Scottish are with me on this one) are a polite species and have had it drilled into us from an early age that when offered something, 'yes' is followed by 'thank you'. 'Sure' is a) bad grammar and b) rude.
"Biscuit" I feel the need to educate Americans and English alike on this one. Mainly because if English people were unfortunate enough to order Tea and Biscuits in the states, they'd be met with a nasty surprise. Biscuits in 'American', are basically bread-rolls. I find this staggering. Even the word 'biscuit' is onomatopoeically bound to be crunchy, and yet you Americans think of them as soft dough balls to be eaten with gravy. If you ever came face to face with a chocolate digestive you'd be ashamed of yourselves. Biscuits are actually essentially cookies, except for when they're not cookies, because we also have differing definitions of what constitutes a 'cookie'. I know I'm not explaining this particularly well. But basically you need to stop calling biscuits biscuits and start calling them lumps-of-bread. OK?
"Jumper" This is NOT, not matter what my future mother-in-law tells me, a dress worn by school-girls, it is a sweater - apart from when said sweater is made from the sort of fabric they make hoodies out of, then the sweater is a sweater. Got it? Good.
"College" / "School" Without going into the English school system at length, suffice to say that college and school are not synonymous with university. They are completely different stages in a person's education and if you ask an English person where they went to school, you'll get the same look of confusion as for 'what's up?' before they remember hearing it used differently on Friends once and catch up.
I hope this irons out some problems. These are the words that trouble me most of all - I'm not going near pronunciation, because, well, we're right, you're wrong and that's all there is to it.
Misanthropy and Hope
Today, like a snail or a tortoise or ummm a hermit crab, or any other creature that carries its home with them, I lifted my bags and my trusty laptop and went on my way (only far less gracefully...yes, you heard me, I'm less graceful than a snail). My end goal was a borrowed bedroom in Kent (I'm currently typing this in a princess bed, having ousted my friend's 3 year old from her room), but first I had to go via work.
Getting to work from Sian and Marc's is usually a breeze. I roll out of couch, hop across the river and I'm there before you can say skinny-vanilla-latte. This morning however the world and its weather was against me. The wind threatened to throw me off Tower Bridge, I nearly got stabbed by more than one ridiculously enormous I'm-a-smug-sod-and-therefore-can-take-up-the-entire-pavement umbrella and the puddles left tide marks on my new boots.
It was grim, but at least everybody around me had the courtesy to look equally miserable. Everything was grey and correctly adhering to pathetic fallacy (although I don't know if it's real pathetic fallacy when you're miserable because of the weather and then the weather mirrors your misery?), and then I saw her. A merry optimist that had no business being in London at rush hour, with an umbrella that read 'Rain Makes the World Grow'. Ugh. I grabbed her umbrella and started bashing her over the head with it. Well, in my head I did anyway.
So it was with such thoughts of peace and goodwill that I finally waded into work.
Two coffees and an onion bagel in and my misanthropy was fading. The world always looks better with an onion bagel. A friend sent me a link to the BBC Personality Test which, being something of a wannabe psycho-analyst, I happily completed. In retrospect I'm not entirely certain it's not a government sponsored spying tool since it asks questions such as 'how much alcohol do you drink' and 'how many sexual partners have you had'? But either way I disregarded any Big Brother misgivings and filled it out like the rest of the sheep.
The test results give you a percentage of various personality traits and tell you (if you didn't already know) how satisfied you are with your life, what your life goals are and other useless-if-you-know-yourself bits of information. Having said that, my scores actually came as quite a surprise - especially when you consider that I nearly assaulted someone with an umbrella this morning for being a bit too positive - it turns out I'm officially (according to the BBC, and we all know you can trust the BBC) pretty happy. Apparently I have 94% Life Satisfaction, scored 82.5% Health and Wellbeing and I prioritise relationships (ok that wasn't surprising - I'm moving countries for one afterall).
While it surprised me on the basis of my exaggerated anger at miss rain-is-food this morning, I realised that when I cut through the crap - when I look past trudging through London in the rain, sleeping on couches and living out of suitcases, not being able to speak to Jeremy properly and stressing about visa post - there's actually a pretty calm, pretty happy Hannah inside.
That's not to say the outer crustiness of Hannah is going to become a little-miss-perky-pants any time soon (rain sucks, whether it makes the world grow or not), but it's good to know that there's an inner smile in there somewhere.
Getting to work from Sian and Marc's is usually a breeze. I roll out of couch, hop across the river and I'm there before you can say skinny-vanilla-latte. This morning however the world and its weather was against me. The wind threatened to throw me off Tower Bridge, I nearly got stabbed by more than one ridiculously enormous I'm-a-smug-sod-and-therefore-can-take-up-the-entire-pavement umbrella and the puddles left tide marks on my new boots.
It was grim, but at least everybody around me had the courtesy to look equally miserable. Everything was grey and correctly adhering to pathetic fallacy (although I don't know if it's real pathetic fallacy when you're miserable because of the weather and then the weather mirrors your misery?), and then I saw her. A merry optimist that had no business being in London at rush hour, with an umbrella that read 'Rain Makes the World Grow'. Ugh. I grabbed her umbrella and started bashing her over the head with it. Well, in my head I did anyway.
So it was with such thoughts of peace and goodwill that I finally waded into work.
Two coffees and an onion bagel in and my misanthropy was fading. The world always looks better with an onion bagel. A friend sent me a link to the BBC Personality Test which, being something of a wannabe psycho-analyst, I happily completed. In retrospect I'm not entirely certain it's not a government sponsored spying tool since it asks questions such as 'how much alcohol do you drink' and 'how many sexual partners have you had'? But either way I disregarded any Big Brother misgivings and filled it out like the rest of the sheep.
The test results give you a percentage of various personality traits and tell you (if you didn't already know) how satisfied you are with your life, what your life goals are and other useless-if-you-know-yourself bits of information. Having said that, my scores actually came as quite a surprise - especially when you consider that I nearly assaulted someone with an umbrella this morning for being a bit too positive - it turns out I'm officially (according to the BBC, and we all know you can trust the BBC) pretty happy. Apparently I have 94% Life Satisfaction, scored 82.5% Health and Wellbeing and I prioritise relationships (ok that wasn't surprising - I'm moving countries for one afterall).
While it surprised me on the basis of my exaggerated anger at miss rain-is-food this morning, I realised that when I cut through the crap - when I look past trudging through London in the rain, sleeping on couches and living out of suitcases, not being able to speak to Jeremy properly and stressing about visa post - there's actually a pretty calm, pretty happy Hannah inside.
That's not to say the outer crustiness of Hannah is going to become a little-miss-perky-pants any time soon (rain sucks, whether it makes the world grow or not), but it's good to know that there's an inner smile in there somewhere.
The World According to Americans
Somewhere out there there’s a woman who thinks her email address is my email address. She must do, because I’ve received flight confirmations, parent-teacher evening requests and random people contacting her because their pastor recommended her as a one fine lady. We shall call her Holly (largely because that’s her name).
Through receiving her emails, I actually know quite a lot about this woman. Other than her being one fine lady, I know she has a son called Noah; that she has a piano which gets tuned by a man called Bob; that she travelled to Chicago with 2 family members on the 24th April; that she is very involved in her church and that her husband is the president of a local Christian college. I also know her phone number, her frequent flyer number, which Tiger pack her son is in (I’m assuming it’s like scouts, otherwise it all sounds a little jungle-book) and I have a sneaking suspicion that the number 8 doesn’t work on her computer. I actually think I probably have enough information to steal her identity. Not that I know how to go about that, but were I the sort…
If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m a Nice person. At least, I’m able to suppress the Nasty most of the time and let the Nice triumph, even if it is through gritted teeth and glares when waiting for tourists to finish taking photos of themselves in the middle of the pavement (trans. Sidewalk). So not only have I not stolen her identity, I’ve also been replying to all of these misguided emails, telling the sender that I am not Holly. Until recently I didn’t know her actual email otherwise I could have signposted them, or at least emailed her and let her know that the reason she’s never heard from all these people is that she doesn’t know her email address.
A couple of the people I’ve replied to have replied back. Some apologising, some checking I’m 100% sure I don’t have a son called Noah, and one actually letting me know Holly’s real email address (my email address but with the number 8 at the end) . In one of these exchanges the woman replying to me asked me, oh so naively, if I lived in Clearwater Florida too.
I’ve done some research. Clearwater Florida has a population of around 100,000. I don’t think this woman really has much of a handle on how the internet works. Never mind that the USA has a population of 304,059,724 so the chances of me being in the 100,000 strong population of Clearwater are pretty damn small, there’s a whole world out there in which a quarter of its population speak English. I chuckled to myself and thought what an adorable example of Americans living up to their stereotype it is.
I know it is a stereotype, and in all likelihood this poor woman is fairly new to cyberspace, but the fact is the majority of Americans do have a pretty sketchy appreciation of geography. I’m not saying they all think that Australia is Iran but I have taken to just saying I’m from London to avoid the blank stares that mention of any other city brings.
(I should probably say here that Jeremy is a major exception to the rule. One of his favourite games is for me to name a country and him to tell me what the capital is. He’s pretty good. )
Another endearing America trait is their ability to be entirely un-phased by distance. This comes from living in the third largest country in the world. Contrast that with living in the UK, which can fit into the US 40 times over and you’ve got some very different ideas on how many miles equal ‘far’.
It doesn’t help that England’s roads basically originated from sheep paths and are therefore the windiest, narrowest, slowest roads known to (wo)man, so getting places takes a long time. My to-be mother-in-law once asked me if she could do London, Cornwall and the Lake District in one weekend. Technically she could, but she’d spend about 2 hours not in the car.
With Jeremy and I, our different nationalities (and therefore relative-distance-appreciation), make for interesting navigating at times. That and I’m pretty lazy and don’t like walking long distances. He generally resorts to lies and trickery. Jeremy has a habit of telling me how far places are according to his GPS watch (he also likes to tell me how fast we’re going when on trains / planes and likes to ask me every 2 minutes how far I think we’ve walked to highlight my poor grasp of all things measurement-ish). In Spain last month it took me quite a few hours of walking towards locations allegedly close by for me to realise that this is as-the-crow-flies and I am not a crow. In America though, this navigational system works ok because they’re basically all crows. Or at least their roads go in straight lines rather than respecting the rights of hedgerows.
Mock it as I may, I quite like the American vision of the world (ignoring the dangerous implications of isolationism of course). Mostly because it makes the Atlantic seem a heck of a lot smaller and the issue of my family being 3000 miles away a minor inconvenience.
Through receiving her emails, I actually know quite a lot about this woman. Other than her being one fine lady, I know she has a son called Noah; that she has a piano which gets tuned by a man called Bob; that she travelled to Chicago with 2 family members on the 24th April; that she is very involved in her church and that her husband is the president of a local Christian college. I also know her phone number, her frequent flyer number, which Tiger pack her son is in (I’m assuming it’s like scouts, otherwise it all sounds a little jungle-book) and I have a sneaking suspicion that the number 8 doesn’t work on her computer. I actually think I probably have enough information to steal her identity. Not that I know how to go about that, but were I the sort…
If you haven’t figured it out already, I’m a Nice person. At least, I’m able to suppress the Nasty most of the time and let the Nice triumph, even if it is through gritted teeth and glares when waiting for tourists to finish taking photos of themselves in the middle of the pavement (trans. Sidewalk). So not only have I not stolen her identity, I’ve also been replying to all of these misguided emails, telling the sender that I am not Holly. Until recently I didn’t know her actual email otherwise I could have signposted them, or at least emailed her and let her know that the reason she’s never heard from all these people is that she doesn’t know her email address.
A couple of the people I’ve replied to have replied back. Some apologising, some checking I’m 100% sure I don’t have a son called Noah, and one actually letting me know Holly’s real email address (my email address but with the number 8 at the end) . In one of these exchanges the woman replying to me asked me, oh so naively, if I lived in Clearwater Florida too.
I’ve done some research. Clearwater Florida has a population of around 100,000. I don’t think this woman really has much of a handle on how the internet works. Never mind that the USA has a population of 304,059,724 so the chances of me being in the 100,000 strong population of Clearwater are pretty damn small, there’s a whole world out there in which a quarter of its population speak English. I chuckled to myself and thought what an adorable example of Americans living up to their stereotype it is.
I know it is a stereotype, and in all likelihood this poor woman is fairly new to cyberspace, but the fact is the majority of Americans do have a pretty sketchy appreciation of geography. I’m not saying they all think that Australia is Iran but I have taken to just saying I’m from London to avoid the blank stares that mention of any other city brings.
(I should probably say here that Jeremy is a major exception to the rule. One of his favourite games is for me to name a country and him to tell me what the capital is. He’s pretty good. )
Another endearing America trait is their ability to be entirely un-phased by distance. This comes from living in the third largest country in the world. Contrast that with living in the UK, which can fit into the US 40 times over and you’ve got some very different ideas on how many miles equal ‘far’.
It doesn’t help that England’s roads basically originated from sheep paths and are therefore the windiest, narrowest, slowest roads known to (wo)man, so getting places takes a long time. My to-be mother-in-law once asked me if she could do London, Cornwall and the Lake District in one weekend. Technically she could, but she’d spend about 2 hours not in the car.
With Jeremy and I, our different nationalities (and therefore relative-distance-appreciation), make for interesting navigating at times. That and I’m pretty lazy and don’t like walking long distances. He generally resorts to lies and trickery. Jeremy has a habit of telling me how far places are according to his GPS watch (he also likes to tell me how fast we’re going when on trains / planes and likes to ask me every 2 minutes how far I think we’ve walked to highlight my poor grasp of all things measurement-ish). In Spain last month it took me quite a few hours of walking towards locations allegedly close by for me to realise that this is as-the-crow-flies and I am not a crow. In America though, this navigational system works ok because they’re basically all crows. Or at least their roads go in straight lines rather than respecting the rights of hedgerows.
Mock it as I may, I quite like the American vision of the world (ignoring the dangerous implications of isolationism of course). Mostly because it makes the Atlantic seem a heck of a lot smaller and the issue of my family being 3000 miles away a minor inconvenience.
Vaccinating America against me and why Caster Semenya and I have more in common than you might at first think.
Yesterday I had my long-awaited, greatly-dreaded Visa-Medical (cue eerie and ominous music).
You might be thinking this is one of your run-of-the-mill medicals where you can waltz along to your GP (Trans. primary care giver), have your blood pressure taken and be declared healthy.
You would be wrong.
The US immigration Deity, in his/her infinite suspiciousness only trusts 2 Doctors Surgeries (Trans. not actually sure - practice? Place where primary-care-givers work. Yes I know it's weird to call them surgeries when there's no actual surgery taking place. Whatever.) in the whole of the U.K. to carry these health inspections out. In fact, these '2' surgeries are really just one in two locations. Does this smell a little monopoly-ish to you? And it was in Mayfair (trans. whatever the purple most-expensive square is on the monopoly board). Fishy.
The whole thing was so surreal I feel the need to recount it in detail. Bear with me.
So I woke up early, having rooted around in my suitcase-in-the-corner in a panic for my last very-expensive-US-specification-passport-photo, and made my way along to Bentinck Mansions, home of Knightsbridge Doctors. It was like walking into a stately home. I was ushered into the waiting room, whereupon my passport, happily-found photo, medical questionnaire and vaccination history were handed over. Then I sat nervously, went to the loo (trans. toilet) a few times more than necessary (I'm an anxious pee-er) and glanced at the other visa-victims waiting for their cavity search. (That's NOT an exaggeration. OK it's a slight exaggeration, but keep reading)
First stop was the nurse with the needles. She was actually pretty nice and commiserated with me at the pointlessness of my having to have the HPV vaccination (which were I just 9 months older would have been deemed unnecessary). That was until she told me that there were 3 instalments of this pointless exercise, each costing £120, to be had over the next 6 months. I swallowed hard and chanted 'Jeremy, Bookcase, Chair'.
I was also given a tetanus injection, which I have less of a problem with since it might actually come in handy next time I get bitten by a dog or stabbed by a cat with a rusty nail. I was less impressed by the £30 they charged me for it though as, had I done my homework, I could have got it for free on the NHS (trans. glorious system of free health care and happiness which isn't quite as glorious in reality but is a darn sight better than the American system). I didn't need any other vaccinations as thankfully I've been pretty well immunised by the wonderful NHS and I had chickenpox when I was 7 (yes, chickenpox is a required vaccine. Woe betide anyone who takes chickenpox to the USA).
After the needles I was ushered into a holding bay (that's what they called it, no joke) where I swapped visa stories with other suckers. Then I was escorted to the X-Ray Chamber where I had to take my top-half of clothing off (wearing a dress wasn't the best plan), put on a rather glamorous robe and press my chest up against a board while she whipped me with a cat-o-nine-tails. Oops, there I go exaggerating again. The rest is true. Honest.
I then had to return, wearing robe and carrying clothes, to the holding bay before being summoned by a rather manic doctor who quizzed me on my medical history (I just said 'no' a lot).
I promise I'm not exaggerating this next bit. Talk about the girl who cried wolf. This is true. Really.
The manic doctor, having interrogated me, then told me to go and lie down on the bed-covered-in-tissue-thing and then came over and, opening the robe , squeezed both of my boobs and took a peek down my knickers to "check I was a girl".
THAT REALLY HAPPENED.
While I'm still a little perplexed by the boob-squeezing, since as far as I'm aware that's not the technique for lump-checking, the needle nurse had warned me about the girl-checking bit. Apparently in the past a man attempted to pass as a woman. Maybe the boob-squeezing is to check they're real? Although if I was a man pretending to be a woman I'd get myself some more convincing boobs than mine. That on its own should have been enough to prove my female-ness.
So after molesting me (I'm not particularly disturbed by this by the way - no need for worried messages - I mostly find it amusing) she then listened to my heart (it was beating pretty fast at this point, probably not helped by the skinny latte I'd had beforehand, certainly not helped by the molestation) / breath sounds (breathing smoothly was also pretty difficult) and took my blood to be tested for HIV. No one who has HIV is permitted entry to the US. It's the only communicable disease that they expressly specify. You'd be in with a better chance if you had the Bubonic Plague. Thankfully I'm pretty certain I don't have it, so this shouldn't be a major hurdle for me, beyond the bruise from the blood test on my inner right elbow. I'm just incredulous that it's the only thing they specifically say will prevent US entry.
I then gathered myself and reclothed and proceeded to the waiting room to pay £340 (about $560) for the privilege of the whole ordeal.
So there you have it. Finally something has actually happened to push me along the road towards Jeremy and Bookcases. I didn't expect female verification to be a part of it, but that just makes the story all the more tellable, and while I'm a bit miffed about paying out hundreds for pointless vaccines, if that's what it takes to convince America that I'm not going to become a burden to their (private) health care system or infect their citizens then so be it.
You might be thinking this is one of your run-of-the-mill medicals where you can waltz along to your GP (Trans. primary care giver), have your blood pressure taken and be declared healthy.
You would be wrong.
The US immigration Deity, in his/her infinite suspiciousness only trusts 2 Doctors Surgeries (Trans. not actually sure - practice? Place where primary-care-givers work. Yes I know it's weird to call them surgeries when there's no actual surgery taking place. Whatever.) in the whole of the U.K. to carry these health inspections out. In fact, these '2' surgeries are really just one in two locations. Does this smell a little monopoly-ish to you? And it was in Mayfair (trans. whatever the purple most-expensive square is on the monopoly board). Fishy.
The whole thing was so surreal I feel the need to recount it in detail. Bear with me.
So I woke up early, having rooted around in my suitcase-in-the-corner in a panic for my last very-expensive-US-specification-passport-photo, and made my way along to Bentinck Mansions, home of Knightsbridge Doctors. It was like walking into a stately home. I was ushered into the waiting room, whereupon my passport, happily-found photo, medical questionnaire and vaccination history were handed over. Then I sat nervously, went to the loo (trans. toilet) a few times more than necessary (I'm an anxious pee-er) and glanced at the other visa-victims waiting for their cavity search. (That's NOT an exaggeration. OK it's a slight exaggeration, but keep reading)
First stop was the nurse with the needles. She was actually pretty nice and commiserated with me at the pointlessness of my having to have the HPV vaccination (which were I just 9 months older would have been deemed unnecessary). That was until she told me that there were 3 instalments of this pointless exercise, each costing £120, to be had over the next 6 months. I swallowed hard and chanted 'Jeremy, Bookcase, Chair'.
I was also given a tetanus injection, which I have less of a problem with since it might actually come in handy next time I get bitten by a dog or stabbed by a cat with a rusty nail. I was less impressed by the £30 they charged me for it though as, had I done my homework, I could have got it for free on the NHS (trans. glorious system of free health care and happiness which isn't quite as glorious in reality but is a darn sight better than the American system). I didn't need any other vaccinations as thankfully I've been pretty well immunised by the wonderful NHS and I had chickenpox when I was 7 (yes, chickenpox is a required vaccine. Woe betide anyone who takes chickenpox to the USA).
After the needles I was ushered into a holding bay (that's what they called it, no joke) where I swapped visa stories with other suckers. Then I was escorted to the X-Ray Chamber where I had to take my top-half of clothing off (wearing a dress wasn't the best plan), put on a rather glamorous robe and press my chest up against a board while she whipped me with a cat-o-nine-tails. Oops, there I go exaggerating again. The rest is true. Honest.
I then had to return, wearing robe and carrying clothes, to the holding bay before being summoned by a rather manic doctor who quizzed me on my medical history (I just said 'no' a lot).
I promise I'm not exaggerating this next bit. Talk about the girl who cried wolf. This is true. Really.
The manic doctor, having interrogated me, then told me to go and lie down on the bed-covered-in-tissue-thing and then came over and, opening the robe , squeezed both of my boobs and took a peek down my knickers to "check I was a girl".
THAT REALLY HAPPENED.
While I'm still a little perplexed by the boob-squeezing, since as far as I'm aware that's not the technique for lump-checking, the needle nurse had warned me about the girl-checking bit. Apparently in the past a man attempted to pass as a woman. Maybe the boob-squeezing is to check they're real? Although if I was a man pretending to be a woman I'd get myself some more convincing boobs than mine. That on its own should have been enough to prove my female-ness.
So after molesting me (I'm not particularly disturbed by this by the way - no need for worried messages - I mostly find it amusing) she then listened to my heart (it was beating pretty fast at this point, probably not helped by the skinny latte I'd had beforehand, certainly not helped by the molestation) / breath sounds (breathing smoothly was also pretty difficult) and took my blood to be tested for HIV. No one who has HIV is permitted entry to the US. It's the only communicable disease that they expressly specify. You'd be in with a better chance if you had the Bubonic Plague. Thankfully I'm pretty certain I don't have it, so this shouldn't be a major hurdle for me, beyond the bruise from the blood test on my inner right elbow. I'm just incredulous that it's the only thing they specifically say will prevent US entry.
I then gathered myself and reclothed and proceeded to the waiting room to pay £340 (about $560) for the privilege of the whole ordeal.
So there you have it. Finally something has actually happened to push me along the road towards Jeremy and Bookcases. I didn't expect female verification to be a part of it, but that just makes the story all the more tellable, and while I'm a bit miffed about paying out hundreds for pointless vaccines, if that's what it takes to convince America that I'm not going to become a burden to their (private) health care system or infect their citizens then so be it.
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