One of those catchy-uppy posts

1. I loved the Olympics - I've never really bothered about it before but being here and seeing London looking all smart and English was pretty amazing.And of course Team GB went and outdid themselves given our teensy weensy island size, which made it cooler (although somehow between NBC coverage and my sporadic watching, I don't think I saw us win a single gold). I could write a long moany post about NBC's coverage but a) I can't be bothered and b) it's already been done. Suffice to say the swimming was still on AFTER the closing ceremony.


2. Summer is amazing. If America wants to keep me, it should just be warm and sunny all year long. Here's my stein of iced tea on a particularly warm day:

3. Our nameless cat continues to be awesome. 


4. I'm still working on the new book. It's not as quick now I'm also working on an actual job, but I'm 33,000 words in so it's coming along. Hopefully.

5. This article  was written and made my friday (which wasn't hard - friday wasn't going so well)

6. We're planning a trip to China to visit our buddy who's moved to Shanghai. Problem is I keep thinking, well, since we're out there, maybe we should go here... and here... and here. Well, no, problem is my vacation allowance.

Never Never Land

Somewhere out there, far far away from here, I am married with a husband and a cat and houseplants. I drive to work in ridiculous traffic everyday and complain about things like lack of natural light. It's hot and we  (this husband and I) debate things like whether to have the air conditioning on and how thick a duvet is really necessary in July.

But right now, I'm not there, I am here - England - for 36 more precious hours I am back in the homeland. Where it rains, a lot. And where I don't have to repeat myself a thousand times (except I'm still unnaturally quiet so sometimes I have to repeat myself a few times). But when I'm here, rather than there, 'There' adopts a quality of unfathomability. How is it possible that I have this other American life, separate to these people here, where drizzle isn't particularly usual?

And yet there are signs of this other life. Apart from the tug of missing towards my 'husband' and 'cat', which I can feel I have and love, despite the fogginess of unreality. I don't have a coat, for one thing - that's right, this Englander managed to pack for a week in England without packing a coat - a sure sign that the other world has some sort of hold over me. And I haven't once managed to try and get in the right side of the car - I get confused every time. And I think I may have finally learnt which way to look when I cross the road in the US because I definitely got it wrong here.

But oh, England, I love you so. Despite the ridiculous amount of rain you are capable of precipitating. Your accents and sense of humour. The fact of clothes stores selling all-in-one pajamas adjacent to bikinis and pubs that still have things like 'prawn cocktail' on the menu for my grandparents to order. Your buildings made of stone and your roads with actual visible painted lines and lanes on them. Your interesting flavours of crisps (which is the only way I'll be eating anything called prawn cocktail btw). And of course my family, who are entirely English and entirely enmeshed with everything I am.

I find these trips confusing. Not because of how strange and culture-shock-y it is, but because of how normal and comfortable. How familiar. Even as Jeremy and Kitty and Sunshine draw me 'home', this other Home remains. Damp and lushly green and absolutely mine. Fogging up reality and reminding me that I'll always belong here. Bugger.

I accept

Here are a few things that I, on the verge of turning 30 (I'm 28, but 30 is only a year and 4 months away and I figure I may as well come to terms with it now), am accepting about myself:

1. I will never be instinctively neat. Nor will I ever have matching underwear. I will likely always hate putting clothes away and delay emptying the dishwasher for as long as possible 
2. It is highly improbable that I will ever be a runner. Or enjoy exercising. I live in hope that some day I will exercise. 
3. I will always act as if I were starved as a child when faced with free food. Always. 
4. Similarly, I will never be able to refuse ice cream.  
5. My hair will never be sleek. I will always look ever so slightly disheveled, if not out and out disheveled 
6. Talking loudly/audibly will probably always require effort. Often more than I can be bothered to muster.
7. Put me in front of a crowd of people and my body will likely always decide to visibly shake with nerves, even if my head says I'm not nervous. 
8. Mornings will never be bearable before coffee. 
9. Following recipes is most probably not something I'll ever do adeptly (meaning reading the whole thing first, making sure I have all the ingredients and then following the steps without making up steps unintentionally)
10. I will never have long polished nails. Clean and only slightly nibbled, maybe. 

I'm not yet ready to accept I'll never be great at parking. Or that I'll never have the body of Gisele Bundchen. Although, points 1, 2,3,4, 5 and 10 certainly point in that direction. I'm also still holding out hope that regular exercise might be in my future - even if I never enjoy it. 

Behind in Time

Have I mentioned that I hate Time Difference? How about that I loathe and detest it?

Well if not (which I highly doubt), I do.

Yesterday, an important day in our family, I was planning on phoning my mum. I was in my mind while I sat at my desk that as soon as I was no longer at my desk, I'd call her.

But then I forgot - it slipped out of reach as I drove home, further still when I decided that stopping at Walmart for CD players, baby wipes and disinfectant (for work... my job is not the most conventional) was a good idea. And by the time I got home it was too late.

But I called anyway.

And woke my Mommy up.

Oops.

I told her to go back to sleep - that I'd phone her today, and that I love her. I put the phone down and paused to let the nose tingle (does everyone's nose tingle when they're about to cry?) and throat ache (how about throat ache?) to die down. I blinked a few times and went to get dinner started. It's not like it hasn't happened before.

Living on this side of the Atlantic, behind rather than ahead in Time, you (I) hold the calling power. Phone calls are made in the evening and my evening is later than their evening, so it's up to me to call them in theirs - to find the time in my day when their day has already ended.

When I was ahead in Time, I used to find this all very frustrating. I'd be ready for bed, aching for sleep, and it would only be 5pm in Jeremy's world. I'd either have to stay awake until gone midnight to talk to him or else I'd snatch a few words while he was at work - conscious that I was sharing him with math code and work phones and evening plans. Generally I stayed awake until after midnight. Generally I was exhausted. I resented him for my lack of sleep - surely it's easy enough to find time in the day, or immediately after work...

Now I'm behind in Time I understand. You mean to call and want to call but then something else comes up and it's still daylight outside so how could it possibly be night somewhere else. And then you check the time and realise it's let you down - that to phone now would mean waking them, stealing precious rest from them, and another day has passed.

And that is why I hate, loathe, detest Time Difference. And why without it the Atlantic would be that much smaller.

woot, as the americans might say.

I'm writing again and OH it feels good. I've been barking up the wrong book for a while now, but I've now started afresh and I'm excited. Nervous, because writing gnaws at me and doesn't let go, but excited.

Oh dear.

I'm totally becoming an American. Americans get 'excited' about everything. It's kind of exhausting.

But this I am excited about, and legitimately so. And only about 55,000 words to go until I have a novel.

Aaaaaand in rushes the dread.

I'm setting myself the goal of 4000 words a week. That's not a ton, but with working full time and being as lazy as I am, I think I'll be lucky if I can meet it.

Watch this space.

This too must pass

Homesickness is a moving target. I get to grips with one form and other one pops up.

The current form is more problematic than the others. Before it's always been an acute feeling of missing. Longing for family or friends or foodstuffs. Missing fields full of cows and small cars and winding roads. My current problem is this:

I'm surrounded by Americans.

They're everywhere. Speaking American, thinking American, eating American food and watching American television. There's even one sleeping in my bed. Heck, even my bloody cat is American. Now that's depressing.

One day I may have American children. I can't quite bring myself to contemplate that as an idea.

I'm not sure when this happened. I mean, obviously it's always been so. I'm in America after all. But recently I've been painfully aware of it in a way I wasn't before.

I'm hoping this feeling will pass. It kind of has to.

In other related news, this week I was introduced to someone as follows:

"I'd like you to meet Hannah, Jeremy's wife. Now, wait until you hear her talk. Hannah, say something."

This feeling will pass, right?

I'll say Tom-ah-to if I bloody want to.

When I moved over here I had to quickly accept that I will forever be a novelty. In a way that (as far as I can tell) isn’t true of other cultures, other accents, Britishness in America is seen as uniquely quaint and, for some reason I’ve yet to understand, totally fair game. There’s mimicry, which is widespread, there’s the curling flicker of a smile when I talk that lets me know they’re only half listening to what I’m actually saying and mostly listening to how I say it, there’s the look of blank confusion that normally goes unaddressed and in that moment I realize that some turn of phrase or word I’ve used has completely passed them by. And then there’s correction:

“It’s not Basil, it’s Baysil.”

“Pavement? You mean sidewalk.”

“Um, we say Tomayto?”

"HA! Oreg-ah-no? it's oregano"

There are certain people around whom I avoid saying certain words because I know it'll result in correction and I'll result in bristling good humour. Ha ha ha, how funny that you think my pronunciation of things is wrong. How amusing. 

Am I sounding bitter? 

The truth is, pretty much every American I know has done this to me at some point or another. People I have known for years still do it. It's also entirely possible that we British (you British I should say, in this instance I am not included) do it to the Americans in our (your) midst. I have but one thing to tell you. 

Stop. 

It happens often enough that I have to drop my ts and ask for budder or warder when people fail to understand butter or water. Recently I even had to spell out children on the phone... c-h-i-l (etc) when a volunteer really couldn't pick up the word I was saying. I actively avoid calling customer service because it's almost always laborious and painful. My days are littered with misunderstandings, repeats and rephrases. So when people I know correct my speech when they already understand what I'm saying, I mostly want to strangle them. 

And then there's the "Alright Guvnors..."

Enough. No More. It was never good and it's certainly no good anymore.