Next year (in a matter of months, in fact) I'm getting married. Married. That's forever - no matter if he goes deaf or gets fat or fights me on turning on the heat every year / day / second. Til death.
Now I'm a pretty romantic and/or irrational person. Think about it. When I was 19 I flew across the Atlantic to visit a boy I'd met in Italy, had known for 5 days and been alone with for a matter of minutes (and kissed for most of those minutes).
Sure, we'd emailed and talked on the phone a couple of times, but basically I'd been intensely bored for a summer (after returning for Italy I worked for the MOD in helicopter engine allotments. Don't ask.), which addled my brain somewhat, and I couldn't get the boy out of my head. So in a moment of madness / inspiration, I booked a flight to New York City and got Jeremy to drive the 6+ hours to pick me up (I knew he lived in New York, I didn't know that Ithaca NY was a billion miles from the state capital [yes, I know, isn't really the capital but it bloody well should be]).
I didn't know I loved him when I flew over there, although I had my suspicions. But Love, I believe, takes a little time to dig deep past infatuation and intuition. By the time I'd left the states after spending a week with Jeremy, I'd voiced it and in saying it out loud, allowed it to take root.
When I left him at JFK for the first time of many future times, I had no idea of how those goodbyes would come to weigh on my shoulders - how I would dread them before we'd even said hello. I said 'I love you' without consideration of what it would mean - because I didn't believe it could be otherwise.
And then there's marriage. Forever. Til Death.
I recently told my mum that marriage is a decision made on the basis of the evidence. That you can't possibly know the future but you weigh up the facts and decide whether you're in with a chance. She informed me that I was being entirely cold-hearted and unromantic and worried that my pragmatism signalled uncertainty.
You see, this time I, we, knew the weight of goodbyes, knew the problem of Time Difference, the pain of Distance. And while my heart said 'this has to be', my head had to stop and check.
We talked at length about what marriage would mean. Where would we have children? How often would we visit our families? Who would move first? Would I be able to leave my mum without crumbling? Would this time be different - could I be happy and settled in America? We knew that marriage would mean a life-time of one of us being homesick, one of us being foreign. And we asked the question - can we give this (us) up? Because if we can, we should. We couldn't.
I'm pretty sure my mum still wishes I were running around breathless and fancy-free, not giving a second thought to the implications of marriage. But in my book, the stopping and checking, the acknowledging that what we had in eachother overcame / overruled all of the difficulties and compromises, makes it all the more romantic. We weighed and outweighed the cost.
And then I waited 6 months for Jeremy to summon the courage to ask me.
towards The Cold.
There's been a chill in the London air of late. As soon as September broke, the air changed and the number of coats laden upon the coat-rack next to me at work grew considerably, so that it now teeters dangerously in my direction with each newly discarded garb.
I don't mind it. Sure, the dry skin and constant need for umbrellas are a bit of a drag but I see it as an excuse to buy new clothes, eat mashed potato, drink spiced (and spiked!) hot apple juice and cozy on down for the winter. Heating and slipper-socks on, I'm perfectly happy.
However.
Waltham (the suburb of Boston we live in) is a different story. For a start, it snows. A Lot. At first, it's magical - the snow muffles and enshrouds, the dingy street adopts a whole new narniaesque quality and you stand in wonder that that much white stuff could have fallen over night. Then you realise: in order to get out of the house, you first must dig (yes, dig) yourself out.
If, like me, you're a poor excuse for an adult who can't drive then you have to wade through snow (which quickly stops being beautiful and ethereal and quickly becomes bloody cold and wet) to the bus stop. By this time you're in danger of getting frost-bite and you remain damp and bedraggled for the rest of the day before trudging despondently home. The alternative for the fully fledged adults isn't much better, because although they don't have to wade to the bus-stop, they do have to shovel out their car, which can take a good 20 minutes of solid freezing effort. Give me a skinny-latte and an onion bagel any day.
That's the real, newly fallen snow, which while inconvenient is not without its charms. Next comes the slush, and the mountains of dead snow (muddy grey piles of nothingness) which stoically remain well into spring. The dead-snow-piles are just ugly. The slush, however, is vindictive. Its favourite game is to pretend to be solid ordinary snow, only to give-way into murky ice water which, again, leaves your toes in danger of frostbite and your shoes in danger of disintegration.
But hey, I hear you say, all that cold just makes going home into the warmth that much more enjoyable, right? Wrong. Because I am marrying a crazy person.
Jeremy, much as I love him (and I do love him very much) has a few screws loose. Particularly when it comes to heating. The boy (I think I'll still be calling him a boy when he's old and grey) doesn't feel the cold and seems to have a yearly competition with himself to see how little oil he can use. The heating only goes on when there's a possibility that the pipes might freeze (and Jeremy doesn't think pipes will freeze unless is hits the theoretical absence of all thermal energy.). I have regularly come into his house to find it's colder inside than outside.
My old housemates will tell you that I'm no fan of cranking up the heat. I want to store up as many carbon-guilt-points as possible so that I feel less guilty when I fly over the Atlantic 4 times a year. But Jeremy pushes the limits of inhabitable conditions - one should not have to wear hats gloves and scarves inside the house - and the only thing that stops me from beating him over the head with a snow-shovel is that I genuinely believe he doesn't feel the cold (he once wore shorts up until january for a $20 bet that never got paid).
But clearly, such a state of affairs is not going to help me settle into my new home. The thought of arriving in mid-boston-winter terrifies me enough without the thought that I might die of hypothermia in my sleep. We've spoken about this and I think Jeremy's resigned to giving up his ice-house along with bachelorhood. The other option, which would definitely save on heating bills is moving to California, where the sun always shines and no one ever needs to exhume their car or contend with frostbite...hmmmm....tough one.
I don't mind it. Sure, the dry skin and constant need for umbrellas are a bit of a drag but I see it as an excuse to buy new clothes, eat mashed potato, drink spiced (and spiked!) hot apple juice and cozy on down for the winter. Heating and slipper-socks on, I'm perfectly happy.
However.
Waltham (the suburb of Boston we live in) is a different story. For a start, it snows. A Lot. At first, it's magical - the snow muffles and enshrouds, the dingy street adopts a whole new narniaesque quality and you stand in wonder that that much white stuff could have fallen over night. Then you realise: in order to get out of the house, you first must dig (yes, dig) yourself out.
If, like me, you're a poor excuse for an adult who can't drive then you have to wade through snow (which quickly stops being beautiful and ethereal and quickly becomes bloody cold and wet) to the bus stop. By this time you're in danger of getting frost-bite and you remain damp and bedraggled for the rest of the day before trudging despondently home. The alternative for the fully fledged adults isn't much better, because although they don't have to wade to the bus-stop, they do have to shovel out their car, which can take a good 20 minutes of solid freezing effort. Give me a skinny-latte and an onion bagel any day.
That's the real, newly fallen snow, which while inconvenient is not without its charms. Next comes the slush, and the mountains of dead snow (muddy grey piles of nothingness) which stoically remain well into spring. The dead-snow-piles are just ugly. The slush, however, is vindictive. Its favourite game is to pretend to be solid ordinary snow, only to give-way into murky ice water which, again, leaves your toes in danger of frostbite and your shoes in danger of disintegration.
But hey, I hear you say, all that cold just makes going home into the warmth that much more enjoyable, right? Wrong. Because I am marrying a crazy person.
Jeremy, much as I love him (and I do love him very much) has a few screws loose. Particularly when it comes to heating. The boy (I think I'll still be calling him a boy when he's old and grey) doesn't feel the cold and seems to have a yearly competition with himself to see how little oil he can use. The heating only goes on when there's a possibility that the pipes might freeze (and Jeremy doesn't think pipes will freeze unless is hits the theoretical absence of all thermal energy.). I have regularly come into his house to find it's colder inside than outside.
My old housemates will tell you that I'm no fan of cranking up the heat. I want to store up as many carbon-guilt-points as possible so that I feel less guilty when I fly over the Atlantic 4 times a year. But Jeremy pushes the limits of inhabitable conditions - one should not have to wear hats gloves and scarves inside the house - and the only thing that stops me from beating him over the head with a snow-shovel is that I genuinely believe he doesn't feel the cold (he once wore shorts up until january for a $20 bet that never got paid).
But clearly, such a state of affairs is not going to help me settle into my new home. The thought of arriving in mid-boston-winter terrifies me enough without the thought that I might die of hypothermia in my sleep. We've spoken about this and I think Jeremy's resigned to giving up his ice-house along with bachelorhood. The other option, which would definitely save on heating bills is moving to California, where the sun always shines and no one ever needs to exhume their car or contend with frostbite...hmmmm....tough one.
Leaving (part 2): Friends
Last night I went out for my birthday. We got a curry from Brick Lane, drank too much free wine and rolled along to Commercial Tavern and Big Chill. It was fun. I was on classic Hannah form, bouncing instead of dancing and demanding hugs (when I'm tipsy I have a compulsion to be hugged - it's got me into many sticky situations and I have now learned that I should always take along a non-predatory male who knows this to act as chief-hugger, and so evade the need to drunkenly explain that no, I don't want to be kissed or groped, just hugged in a platonic friendly fashion)
At the beginning of the evening I got a phone call from my buddy Henny (Henrietta - her entire family have very long names that demand shortening), sniffling because she'd read my blog and missed me. Henny buggered off to France a few months ago to be a wife and drive a car, raise a child, own furniture and other grown-up things like that. For a while, Henny was only a bus-ride away and now she's a train+plane+car ride away and soon she's going to be car+plaaaaaaaane+car.
And not just Henny. All of my friends will soon require multiple modes of transport, time and money in order to see them.
I remember with a chill how when I lived in Boston for my Masters, I felt at times that I had lost the essence of me - the person who bounces instead of dancing. Because that easy happiness comes out with familiarity and comfortableness, with hanging out with people who I know love me and accepting that as a fact without question. Of course in America I have Jeremy's friends and Jeremy's family, all of whom are lovely and (I think!) like me, but they're his - not mine. And while they may become 'mine' too, it wont happen overnight.
It's going to take time, this building of a life. But I know it can be done. One of my closest friends in the world was made at work - all it took was a late night trip to a Manchester Casualty (trans. an ER, in the city of Manchester) and a few women shouting 'Herpes' at each other (in the waiting room - not us), for us to become inseparable. Now a weekend without at least one day with Sian feels somewhat incomplete.
You see, it's one thing standing on street corners with signs and making new friends, it's another thing leaving behind my 'old' friends - the ones with the history and the stories - the ones that know my tendency to hug when drunk and protect me accordingly.
Saying goodbye to these people is not going to be easy. Basically the only tolerable solution is for everyone to move to Boston. OK?
At the beginning of the evening I got a phone call from my buddy Henny (Henrietta - her entire family have very long names that demand shortening), sniffling because she'd read my blog and missed me. Henny buggered off to France a few months ago to be a wife and drive a car, raise a child, own furniture and other grown-up things like that. For a while, Henny was only a bus-ride away and now she's a train+plane+car ride away and soon she's going to be car+plaaaaaaaane+car.
And not just Henny. All of my friends will soon require multiple modes of transport, time and money in order to see them.
I remember with a chill how when I lived in Boston for my Masters, I felt at times that I had lost the essence of me - the person who bounces instead of dancing. Because that easy happiness comes out with familiarity and comfortableness, with hanging out with people who I know love me and accepting that as a fact without question. Of course in America I have Jeremy's friends and Jeremy's family, all of whom are lovely and (I think!) like me, but they're his - not mine. And while they may become 'mine' too, it wont happen overnight.
It's going to take time, this building of a life. But I know it can be done. One of my closest friends in the world was made at work - all it took was a late night trip to a Manchester Casualty (trans. an ER, in the city of Manchester) and a few women shouting 'Herpes' at each other (in the waiting room - not us), for us to become inseparable. Now a weekend without at least one day with Sian feels somewhat incomplete.
You see, it's one thing standing on street corners with signs and making new friends, it's another thing leaving behind my 'old' friends - the ones with the history and the stories - the ones that know my tendency to hug when drunk and protect me accordingly.
Saying goodbye to these people is not going to be easy. Basically the only tolerable solution is for everyone to move to Boston. OK?
Meet me in Madrid...
Next week, Jeremy and I are meeting in Madrid.
You might think it's romantic, meeting the man you love in a foreign country. In reality it just means travelling alone, which means I don't have anyone to tell me that planes don't crash because of turbulence, and while I'm not entirely convinced by this (and have recently garnered evidence that it can do you some serious injury), it's comforting to have someone's hand to clutch and squeeze hard whenever the seat-belt sign gets switched on. Also, this time, Jeremy (who arrives 6 hours earlier than me) has gallantly declared he's going to the hotel to sleep and I can make my own way there. While I don't really want him hanging around jet-lagged for 6 hours, I also kinda do...
Anyway, I digress. What I've been thinking about is that this is one of the last time we're going to be doing this - where it once felt that this crazy scenario of airport hellos and goodbyes would never end, there are now a finite amount of these left. So I've been thinking if there's anything about long-distancing that I'm gonna miss...
....
Nope, nothing.
Here's the thing - long distance relationships suck. Embarking on one was probably the daftest thing I've ever done (and I'm still amazed that Jeremy, pragmatic as he is, even contemplated it). They are sleep-sapping, paranoia-inducing, money-draining and intimacy-lacking. My mum is fond of telling me that relationships don't stay still, they either go forward or back. Well I reckon that for every 2 steps of relationship progress Jeremy and I made when together, there's been at least 1 step of regress when apart (1.5 in Februarys.) Thankfully (miraculously?), we seem to be good enough together when together that in 6.5 years of 2 steps forward, 1 step back we've managed to progress to marriage.
So when we meet in Madrid this time, it's going to be with a growing sense of achievement and anticipation - that future journeys will be made with hands to hold (I doubt Jeremy is too pleased about this) and most importantly that planes wont need to be boarded or time zones crossed in order to see each other.
Of course I shouldn't get too smug - they say the first year of marriage is the hardest, and in that year I've chosen to move countries and so eliminate my entire support system. But hey, we've made it this far... I'm going to shut up now before I start singing Shania Twain.
You might think it's romantic, meeting the man you love in a foreign country. In reality it just means travelling alone, which means I don't have anyone to tell me that planes don't crash because of turbulence, and while I'm not entirely convinced by this (and have recently garnered evidence that it can do you some serious injury), it's comforting to have someone's hand to clutch and squeeze hard whenever the seat-belt sign gets switched on. Also, this time, Jeremy (who arrives 6 hours earlier than me) has gallantly declared he's going to the hotel to sleep and I can make my own way there. While I don't really want him hanging around jet-lagged for 6 hours, I also kinda do...
Anyway, I digress. What I've been thinking about is that this is one of the last time we're going to be doing this - where it once felt that this crazy scenario of airport hellos and goodbyes would never end, there are now a finite amount of these left. So I've been thinking if there's anything about long-distancing that I'm gonna miss...
....
Nope, nothing.
Here's the thing - long distance relationships suck. Embarking on one was probably the daftest thing I've ever done (and I'm still amazed that Jeremy, pragmatic as he is, even contemplated it). They are sleep-sapping, paranoia-inducing, money-draining and intimacy-lacking. My mum is fond of telling me that relationships don't stay still, they either go forward or back. Well I reckon that for every 2 steps of relationship progress Jeremy and I made when together, there's been at least 1 step of regress when apart (1.5 in Februarys.) Thankfully (miraculously?), we seem to be good enough together when together that in 6.5 years of 2 steps forward, 1 step back we've managed to progress to marriage.
So when we meet in Madrid this time, it's going to be with a growing sense of achievement and anticipation - that future journeys will be made with hands to hold (I doubt Jeremy is too pleased about this) and most importantly that planes wont need to be boarded or time zones crossed in order to see each other.
Of course I shouldn't get too smug - they say the first year of marriage is the hardest, and in that year I've chosen to move countries and so eliminate my entire support system. But hey, we've made it this far... I'm going to shut up now before I start singing Shania Twain.
The joys of couch-surfing
So for the past few months I've been couch-surfing, which is really just a fancy way of saying sleeping terribly.
After Jeremy and I got engaged, I gave up my room and decided it would be a good plan to sleep on various floors / sofa-beds / couches as a way to save money - to cushion the inevitable blow of months of unemployment once I move to the States and wait for Employment Authorisation and Advanced Parole and other such terms which make me feel like a criminal.
Little did I know that the USCIS (US citizen & immigration service) would take FOREVER to send one measly little email to say we were through the first stage and it was being sent to the next ... and that there would be a postal strike (see 'my love of the royal mail') that would delay everything by a decade (or 3 months) and so extend my couch-surfing / ill-sleeping by a million years (3 months).
So for the past million decades (3 months) I've been dividing my time between various benevolent friends and their altruistic couches. This has worked reasonably well - I generally have a talent for sleeping anywhere and I enjoy cooking for people, which tends to mean my benefactors don't hate me. Other than the odd stiff neck and under-eye shadows, I've been surfing the couches relatively unscathed.
Until Now.
Yesterday, my friend Helen informed me that she had awoken in horror to the sight of a...BED-BUG. For those of you who are blissfully unaware of the horrors of bedbugs, no they are not the figment of a nursery rhyme, Bed-Bugs are the modern-day plague. Ok, they don't bring death, but they do bring full-on insanity-inducing paranoia and they are hugely upsetting. Of course I was very concerned for Helen, second only to my deep concern for myself. Because Helen's couch, is (was) my surfing-turf.
After trying unsuccessfully to feign deep concern for Helen (I'm pretty sure she knew I was mostly concerned for me) , I came back to my current residence (my dad's flat in richmond - where I spend 40% of my time) and starting maniacally searching furniture / clothing / wall seams, cracks and crevices for lentil-shaped creatures. I didn't find any. But that didn't stop me playing a strange game with phantom bed-bugs in the middle of the night, which involved lying very still in the dark until I thought they might have let down their guard, before switching on the light and pulling back the covers to catch them in their carnivorousness. There still weren't any. But that didn't stop me going on to dream about them.
Helen, who actually does have bed-bugs (rather than my imagined ones) behaved much more sensibly. She took a sleeping pill, had rent-a-kill around in the morning and has taken steps to sorting the problem (which wasn't that serious in the first place). Ah to be that pragmatic.
After Jeremy and I got engaged, I gave up my room and decided it would be a good plan to sleep on various floors / sofa-beds / couches as a way to save money - to cushion the inevitable blow of months of unemployment once I move to the States and wait for Employment Authorisation and Advanced Parole and other such terms which make me feel like a criminal.
Little did I know that the USCIS (US citizen & immigration service) would take FOREVER to send one measly little email to say we were through the first stage and it was being sent to the next ... and that there would be a postal strike (see 'my love of the royal mail') that would delay everything by a decade (or 3 months) and so extend my couch-surfing / ill-sleeping by a million years (3 months).
So for the past million decades (3 months) I've been dividing my time between various benevolent friends and their altruistic couches. This has worked reasonably well - I generally have a talent for sleeping anywhere and I enjoy cooking for people, which tends to mean my benefactors don't hate me. Other than the odd stiff neck and under-eye shadows, I've been surfing the couches relatively unscathed.
Until Now.
Yesterday, my friend Helen informed me that she had awoken in horror to the sight of a...BED-BUG. For those of you who are blissfully unaware of the horrors of bedbugs, no they are not the figment of a nursery rhyme, Bed-Bugs are the modern-day plague. Ok, they don't bring death, but they do bring full-on insanity-inducing paranoia and they are hugely upsetting. Of course I was very concerned for Helen, second only to my deep concern for myself. Because Helen's couch, is (was) my surfing-turf.
After trying unsuccessfully to feign deep concern for Helen (I'm pretty sure she knew I was mostly concerned for me) , I came back to my current residence (my dad's flat in richmond - where I spend 40% of my time) and starting maniacally searching furniture / clothing / wall seams, cracks and crevices for lentil-shaped creatures. I didn't find any. But that didn't stop me playing a strange game with phantom bed-bugs in the middle of the night, which involved lying very still in the dark until I thought they might have let down their guard, before switching on the light and pulling back the covers to catch them in their carnivorousness. There still weren't any. But that didn't stop me going on to dream about them.
Helen, who actually does have bed-bugs (rather than my imagined ones) behaved much more sensibly. She took a sleeping pill, had rent-a-kill around in the morning and has taken steps to sorting the problem (which wasn't that serious in the first place). Ah to be that pragmatic.
My love of The Royal Mail.
And by Love, I mean deep rooted veangeful hatred.
Applying for a visa is stressful at the best of times. I'm not going to talk you through the process - if you know me, you've already been talked through it multiple times and if you don't know me then there's no reason for me to clutter your brain with useless information. Suffice to say that there's a lot of paperwork and beureacracy and it's generally one fat nightmare.
This is not helped in the slightest by multiple postal strikes, meaning letters from embassies are taking over a month to arrive and police certificates are MIA... All of this has nurtured in me a neuroses that wouldn't be out of place on Ally McBeal. The mere mention of post (trans. 'mail') causes palpitations and shortness of breath, and I've memorised the most recent statement on the strike, having read it 1000 times in the hope that this time it might say something positive. I haven't seen any dancing babies yet, but watch this space.
So far, the only balm to my neuroses has been various forums like britishexpats.com. As far as I can figure out, guardian angels sit at their computers all day long, just waiting for me to pose crazed questions. They then calmly answer them, referencing all sorts of supporting evidence, assuaging my fears and paving the way towards paranoia free sleep. Bless them, I say.
Goodness knows who can be bothered to soothe the likes of me - I'd be tempted to give the wrong information, like when tourists ask me where London Bridge is and I feel the urge to send them not towards Tower Bridge (what they actually mean by London Bridge) but towards Elephant and Castle. That'd teach them for disrupting my stride by walking slowly, standing on the left on escalators and taking pictures of street signs. But thankfully, these visa angels are much much kinder, patient and magnanimous than me and I am truly grateful for it.
Maybe the Visa Angels have been sent to balance out the Royal Mail Sods, either way the fragile equilibrium of Hannah is just about being maintained. For now.
Applying for a visa is stressful at the best of times. I'm not going to talk you through the process - if you know me, you've already been talked through it multiple times and if you don't know me then there's no reason for me to clutter your brain with useless information. Suffice to say that there's a lot of paperwork and beureacracy and it's generally one fat nightmare.
This is not helped in the slightest by multiple postal strikes, meaning letters from embassies are taking over a month to arrive and police certificates are MIA... All of this has nurtured in me a neuroses that wouldn't be out of place on Ally McBeal. The mere mention of post (trans. 'mail') causes palpitations and shortness of breath, and I've memorised the most recent statement on the strike, having read it 1000 times in the hope that this time it might say something positive. I haven't seen any dancing babies yet, but watch this space.
So far, the only balm to my neuroses has been various forums like britishexpats.com. As far as I can figure out, guardian angels sit at their computers all day long, just waiting for me to pose crazed questions. They then calmly answer them, referencing all sorts of supporting evidence, assuaging my fears and paving the way towards paranoia free sleep. Bless them, I say.
Goodness knows who can be bothered to soothe the likes of me - I'd be tempted to give the wrong information, like when tourists ask me where London Bridge is and I feel the urge to send them not towards Tower Bridge (what they actually mean by London Bridge) but towards Elephant and Castle. That'd teach them for disrupting my stride by walking slowly, standing on the left on escalators and taking pictures of street signs. But thankfully, these visa angels are much much kinder, patient and magnanimous than me and I am truly grateful for it.
Maybe the Visa Angels have been sent to balance out the Royal Mail Sods, either way the fragile equilibrium of Hannah is just about being maintained. For now.
"Wow, you must be really excited"
Is the standard response upon hearing I'm moving to America to marry Jeremy. And you'd think I'd be bouncing with joy and delirium and reply "YES! I can't wait!" Instead, I tend to wrinkle up my nose and shrug "mmm yea, it is exciting...bloody terrifying though".
Because I know it's going to be tough. Not the Jeremy part - that's going to be amazing, and genuinely does make me want to do my best Tigger bounce - but the New and Different part.
You see, I've done this before. I moved to Boston straight after Warwick, to live with Jeremy and do my Masters and start my happy-ever-after. Except it didn't work that way - I couldn't get a job after uni , was hopelessly dependent on Jeremy for everything (money, transport, company), I had no friends and found myself drifting into a dull depression.
I think it was the week when I watched about 5 seasons of America's Next Top Model back-to-back that I realised I had to take control back and I decided to move back to England. It was a good decision - Jeremy and I survived the return to distance and I got a good job, and reasserted my independence.
Now here I am, about to move back to Boston, and I know it's going to be tough - I know it's going to take a huge assertion of will and energy and I'm not the most energetic person at the best of times.
So yes, I am excited but I'm also scared - there's no room for messing this one up and returning to England is not an option. Here is my list of actions that are going to stop me from reverting to my ANTM watching self:
1. Learn to drive - shameful, I know, but laziness and public transport have so far delayed this particular rite of passage. However in America, there is only laziness and that's not gonna wash.
2. Join a club - not sure what club exactly, but something where friendship may occur without me having to stand on street corners with a sign saying 'lonely, be my friend'.
3. Get a job - unlike my newly graduated self of 2007, I now have skills, or at least some extra stuff written on my CV, so hopefully this wont be an impossible task. Getting a job should also help with the friendship goal and will mean I can go clothes shopping, which will produce seratonin.
4. Visit my friend Christina in NYC often. Before, Christina was in Argentina being cool. Now, she's in New York being cool and that is much closer. I can but hope that some of the coolness will rub off.
5. Join a gym - so that even if I am friendless, I can at least get off the couch and stop myself assimilating that way (sorry to all my non-fat american friends, I was being facetious)
6. Maintain my accent. Last time, I allowed it to slip dangerously close to the american norm. This time I'm determined to maintain my identity, which also means refusing to alter my accent, even when no one understands me and bus drivers ask 'are you european or something?'
All of the above are going to shield me from drifting back to an ANTM stupor of yesteryear...And of course, Jeremy's going to be there too. I'm gonna be fine. Bounce.
Because I know it's going to be tough. Not the Jeremy part - that's going to be amazing, and genuinely does make me want to do my best Tigger bounce - but the New and Different part.
You see, I've done this before. I moved to Boston straight after Warwick, to live with Jeremy and do my Masters and start my happy-ever-after. Except it didn't work that way - I couldn't get a job after uni , was hopelessly dependent on Jeremy for everything (money, transport, company), I had no friends and found myself drifting into a dull depression.
I think it was the week when I watched about 5 seasons of America's Next Top Model back-to-back that I realised I had to take control back and I decided to move back to England. It was a good decision - Jeremy and I survived the return to distance and I got a good job, and reasserted my independence.
Now here I am, about to move back to Boston, and I know it's going to be tough - I know it's going to take a huge assertion of will and energy and I'm not the most energetic person at the best of times.
So yes, I am excited but I'm also scared - there's no room for messing this one up and returning to England is not an option. Here is my list of actions that are going to stop me from reverting to my ANTM watching self:
1. Learn to drive - shameful, I know, but laziness and public transport have so far delayed this particular rite of passage. However in America, there is only laziness and that's not gonna wash.
2. Join a club - not sure what club exactly, but something where friendship may occur without me having to stand on street corners with a sign saying 'lonely, be my friend'.
3. Get a job - unlike my newly graduated self of 2007, I now have skills, or at least some extra stuff written on my CV, so hopefully this wont be an impossible task. Getting a job should also help with the friendship goal and will mean I can go clothes shopping, which will produce seratonin.
4. Visit my friend Christina in NYC often. Before, Christina was in Argentina being cool. Now, she's in New York being cool and that is much closer. I can but hope that some of the coolness will rub off.
5. Join a gym - so that even if I am friendless, I can at least get off the couch and stop myself assimilating that way (sorry to all my non-fat american friends, I was being facetious)
6. Maintain my accent. Last time, I allowed it to slip dangerously close to the american norm. This time I'm determined to maintain my identity, which also means refusing to alter my accent, even when no one understands me and bus drivers ask 'are you european or something?'
All of the above are going to shield me from drifting back to an ANTM stupor of yesteryear...And of course, Jeremy's going to be there too. I'm gonna be fine. Bounce.
Leaving (part 1) : mother.
Today I'm heading back to London from the sleepiest, most Dibley-esque, village in Devon. I didn't grow up here - my parents moved to Dibley about 2 years ago - but its peace and quirks have sucked me in and I've quietly accepted it as a replacement to my beloved Somerton, albeit lacking a unicorn.
So today I leave the quiet and return to the everbusy, but it's not so much that I'm thinking of as saying goodbye to my mum. Of course, saying goodbye for a couple of weeks isn't a big deal - we talk more often than is normal (I've been told by my younger, more independent, sister) and it never takes long for London to push me back towards the quiet.
But in a couple of months (visa permitting - it's becoming my version of Insha'Allah), it's going to be a longer goodbye, where conversations are scheduled around a rather uncooperative and immobile Time Difference, and where it costs extreme amounts of time, money and carbon-guilt-points to see eachother (not to mention the American Work Ethic, which often only gives 2 weeks holiday a year - Jeremy's been told I'm taking unpaid leave) .
In many ways it feels like I'm swapping one heart-ache for another. My mum and I are unusually close and the thought of being away from her makes me want to cry into my lukewarm fairtrade coffee.
But Jeremy and I are going to be building our own family - no, no children yet - more a 'family' in terms of him, me and a bookcase. (He's giving me a bookcase for my birthday which is far more symbolic than he realises - at long last my beloved books will have a home.) And well, I can't really pass up on Love and happily-ever-after, for living nearby to my mother now can I? Love me as she does, I think she'd tell me to get a life within a week.
So today I leave the quiet and return to the everbusy, but it's not so much that I'm thinking of as saying goodbye to my mum. Of course, saying goodbye for a couple of weeks isn't a big deal - we talk more often than is normal (I've been told by my younger, more independent, sister) and it never takes long for London to push me back towards the quiet.
But in a couple of months (visa permitting - it's becoming my version of Insha'Allah), it's going to be a longer goodbye, where conversations are scheduled around a rather uncooperative and immobile Time Difference, and where it costs extreme amounts of time, money and carbon-guilt-points to see eachother (not to mention the American Work Ethic, which often only gives 2 weeks holiday a year - Jeremy's been told I'm taking unpaid leave) .
In many ways it feels like I'm swapping one heart-ache for another. My mum and I are unusually close and the thought of being away from her makes me want to cry into my lukewarm fairtrade coffee.
But Jeremy and I are going to be building our own family - no, no children yet - more a 'family' in terms of him, me and a bookcase. (He's giving me a bookcase for my birthday which is far more symbolic than he realises - at long last my beloved books will have a home.) And well, I can't really pass up on Love and happily-ever-after, for living nearby to my mother now can I? Love me as she does, I think she'd tell me to get a life within a week.
What's tea got to do with it?
Well nothing much really, except that it's rather symbolic of Englishness and inspires many memories of sitting around the kitchen table late at night with friends drinking tea and Mark eating all the biscuits (we were very benign teenagers). Soon there will also be memories of tea at TimeBank (I'm leaving in December) - using it primarily as an excuse to leave desks and have a gossip, spilling it all over myself / keyboard / notebook, instinctively making an extra cup for my chain-drinking boss...
But tea is also symbolic of Englishness because it's mild and polite - I can drink it all day and not get the shakes, it goes very well with cake and small sandwiches and it requires the use of a kettle.
Which brings me on to one of my primary gripes about America, and a big source of hesitation over this super-power being as super-powerful as they are: They Don't Have Electric Kettles.
Actually that's not entirely true. Jeremy and I (in Boston) do have an electric kettle - possibly the first electric kettle ever made. It sparks whenever you plug it in and it doesn't switch itself off when it boils - just makes an anxious squealing noise. This is fine unless you're like me and tend to forget you've put the kettle on and go and have a shower and emerge in damp confusion to steam and squealing and the beginnings of a small fire.
So you see, I'm not entirely convinced America should be the superpower it claims to be - the lack of kettles seems highly indicative of an inherent backwardness, and don't even get me started on the gaps in public toilets...
I'm moving there for Love, I tell myself, and there are always Reeses Peanut Buttercups to make up for the gaps in technology and sophistication.
Note to self - add english electric kettle to gift registry (and get a power transformer thingy so it works)
But tea is also symbolic of Englishness because it's mild and polite - I can drink it all day and not get the shakes, it goes very well with cake and small sandwiches and it requires the use of a kettle.
Which brings me on to one of my primary gripes about America, and a big source of hesitation over this super-power being as super-powerful as they are: They Don't Have Electric Kettles.
Actually that's not entirely true. Jeremy and I (in Boston) do have an electric kettle - possibly the first electric kettle ever made. It sparks whenever you plug it in and it doesn't switch itself off when it boils - just makes an anxious squealing noise. This is fine unless you're like me and tend to forget you've put the kettle on and go and have a shower and emerge in damp confusion to steam and squealing and the beginnings of a small fire.
So you see, I'm not entirely convinced America should be the superpower it claims to be - the lack of kettles seems highly indicative of an inherent backwardness, and don't even get me started on the gaps in public toilets...
I'm moving there for Love, I tell myself, and there are always Reeses Peanut Buttercups to make up for the gaps in technology and sophistication.
Note to self - add english electric kettle to gift registry (and get a power transformer thingy so it works)
Where to Begin?
So I've decided to write a blog, but where to begin?
Should it begin in 2003 in our 'Epic Tradition' seminars, with Helen and I drawing pictures of Lions eating Derek Hughes as we cultivated our excitement about our upcoming trip to Kenya?
Or when the Kenya trip was cancelled due to terrorist threats, the foreign office and over-protective parents?
Or when Helen and I chose Italy as the tamer, cheaper option and decided it would be hilarious if we were killed by Lions or Terrorists there (not sure why we thought that'd be funny - I think we were just discovering irony).
And then there was the ill advised kissing of a very tall australian in sicily, copious amounts of italian wine and pizza, the heady joy of being young and free and gathering 'stories' to exaggerate back at Warwick.
All of which led us to a hostel in Sorrento, where the shower overflowed but the pizza was cheap and while I was regretting kissing the tall australian, my friends were busy befriending two Americans.
(quick montage spanning 6.5 years: boat-trips around Capri, first-kiss on beach in Italy, arguments with parents, reckless visit to America, staying up all night to talk, falling asleep on the arts centre floor, many tears, flights, hellos / goodbyes, 1 MA from Boston University, unsuccessful jobsearch, return to England, more tears, flights etc, a proposal at the top of the hub and mountains of forms and red visa tape)
Which pretty much brings us up to date. So I guess I'll begin here - staring out at devonshire countryside (weekend escape from London), with everything about to happen but nothing actually happening right now, waiting (always waiting) for visa letters and interviews and marquee quotes and thinking (always thinking) about future jobs and friends and whether I'll ever cave and pronounce Basil, baysil - I hope not but shudder at the thought that my children might...
Should it begin in 2003 in our 'Epic Tradition' seminars, with Helen and I drawing pictures of Lions eating Derek Hughes as we cultivated our excitement about our upcoming trip to Kenya?
Or when the Kenya trip was cancelled due to terrorist threats, the foreign office and over-protective parents?
Or when Helen and I chose Italy as the tamer, cheaper option and decided it would be hilarious if we were killed by Lions or Terrorists there (not sure why we thought that'd be funny - I think we were just discovering irony).
And then there was the ill advised kissing of a very tall australian in sicily, copious amounts of italian wine and pizza, the heady joy of being young and free and gathering 'stories' to exaggerate back at Warwick.
All of which led us to a hostel in Sorrento, where the shower overflowed but the pizza was cheap and while I was regretting kissing the tall australian, my friends were busy befriending two Americans.
(quick montage spanning 6.5 years: boat-trips around Capri, first-kiss on beach in Italy, arguments with parents, reckless visit to America, staying up all night to talk, falling asleep on the arts centre floor, many tears, flights, hellos / goodbyes, 1 MA from Boston University, unsuccessful jobsearch, return to England, more tears, flights etc, a proposal at the top of the hub and mountains of forms and red visa tape)
Which pretty much brings us up to date. So I guess I'll begin here - staring out at devonshire countryside (weekend escape from London), with everything about to happen but nothing actually happening right now, waiting (always waiting) for visa letters and interviews and marquee quotes and thinking (always thinking) about future jobs and friends and whether I'll ever cave and pronounce Basil, baysil - I hope not but shudder at the thought that my children might...
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