foreigner

First let me say that if you read the previous post, you'll understand why it's been two months until this one. Change is asked for, it happens, and then time gets sucked into a black hole. That said, I've not been bored.

OK so I've a billion things to write about. Our recent trip to Asia and the Japanese guest house where there were different slippers for different bits of the house. The fact that maternity leave in America is just 12 unpaid weeks (no, I'm not pregnant). That not just blogging writing stopped since I went and requested change, but all writing and I'm a bit scared to start again.

But instead, let me tell you about the following exchange in our local Trader Joes (not sure of UK comparison... maybe M&S Simply Food except less stuck up and more chilled out Californian). Oh, and prefacing this by saying that I usually avoid asking questions of strangers, and now I know why.

Hannah: "Excuse me?"

Man (busy stacking shelves)

Hannah: "I'm sorry, excuse me, but do you know if you still stock Tofurky?" (Torfurky is sliced vegetarian 'turkey' that is pretty tasty and which J inhales regularly)

Man: "Can I help you?"

Hannah: "Yes, do you still stock Tofurky? I can't find it."

Man: "I'm sorry, what?"

Hannah: (getting flustered) "Tofurky. Do you have it?

Man: (confused) "SoMarKurNis?" (I can't remember exactly what he said here except that no letters, sounds or syllables were the same.)

Hannah: (In this now so need to press forward) "No. Torfurky? It's like the fake turkey sandwich meat."

Man: (Looking more confused, starts to lead me towards a section of the shop that seems promising enough. We stop in front of the sushi.)

Hannah: (Very confused)

Man: (hopefully) "fake Sake?"
(I should note that there isn't such a thing as fake Sake and it wasn't infront of us).

Hannah: (wishing ground would swallow her) "Haha" (nervously and cursing Jeremy for wanting this stuff) "no, I mean fake turkey. Turkey. Like ummm Chicken?"

(this could well have got to the point where I had to flap my fake wings and start talking about pilgrims giving thanks except somehow he at this point understood.)

Man: "OH, you mean TOFURKY."

Hannah: (Grimacing) "yes."

Man. "I don't think we have that."

(turns out they do have it, it was 2 feet away and when I finally found it after he'd questioned another staff member who didn't have trouble understanding me and knew where it was, the first guy stood over me while I picked it up asking  "that's what you want?" "you've found it?" "are you sure?")

I know I have an accent, but it's really not THAT different.

When you ask for change...

...change seems to happen. At least, not always and not to everyone, but often and to many. Since I posted in February, my friends who were waiting alongside me for something new, those who were reassessing their careers or elements of their lives and finding them wanting, have all found change and hopefully the change they've been hoping for. One has moved countries with the added security of being able to take her job with her, which sounds crazy lucky but it only really happened because she decided to move either way. Another has signed up for classes to lead her in an entirely new career direction, and got a promotion in her current job. I imagine there are more stories from more people that I haven't heard yet or that haven't quite happened yet, but my point is this - that when change becomes the only option, it happens.

And then there's me. February was a horrible month. I was low and homesick and had moments of something near despair. They were only fleeting moments, but despair is not something you ever want to come close to, especially not in February. I wanted, needed change. I went to an information seminar on Social Work and came away knowing that that particular course for sure was not for me. I sent my book off to my agent, hoping that might be the change I needed, and it came back supremely unloved - which is OK, it needs work and that's fine, but it wasn't the flash of newness that I needed. I got my new greencard back, which meant I could stop envisioning deportation or canceled holidays, but which didn't change much in the day to day. And then, the day after my Social Work disappointment (I'd been expecting some sort of fire of hope and excitement to be lit under me and it definitely was not), I was told that my boss had got a promotion meaning his job was available, and everything started to feel more possible.

I got the job. I started the job. I didn't stop my other job (we're recruiting), which has meant I've been busier than I've possibly ever been (busy in charity job terms, not in lawyer / banker terms - I've eaten dinner with Jeremy and slept in my own bed each night - but there's are reasons I'm neither lawyer or banker and my lack of aptitude to either job is not the only one). I haven't been bored in almost a whole month. Life is moving forward. And, I'm writing this sat in our sunroom where it is warm without the help of radiators. Progress.

To Jeremy, on three years of marriage

I was scared. I didn't know what it'd be like, what we'd be like and I didn't like not knowing. And forever seemed such a long time, too long to really know anything. And I was here and not there, and everything I knew that wasn't you was there and not here, and for a moment it all seemed too much. But somehow I was able to trust the decision I'd made and trust the love we had - trust it to keep me afloat in those early homesick days and then to lift me above water level and help me find a life here that I wanted to live. And it worked, or proved true, or something.

There's not a day that closes without me feeling grateful in some way that I made that choice and took that chance. You make me laugh like nobody else- with your songs and your dimples and everything you are. You change lightbulbs in my car and fix my tyres and sort the internet on our computer. You bought our house when really I think you'd have been happy in that nasty Waltham apartment forever more. You laugh at your own jokes and make up names for the cat and never ever stop making noise of some sort. You are indefatigably curious and sometimes I wish you were just a little bit lazy. You eat ingredients and it drives me insane. You cook and clean up after yourself and deal with me being not so great at cleaning up after myself. You're very particular about only boiling the correct amount of water. You do our taxes and you don't get cross when I throw a tantrum about being too hot when running on a treadmill. You run at my speed and are friends with my friends and occasionally babysit for their children so that we can go out. You tolerate Grey's Anatomy. Sometimes. You challenge me to push myself, to climb (literal) mountains and run (literal, half) marathons and to not hate republicans just because they're republican. You are completely wrong about the value of fiction and really need to go clothes shopping more than once a year. We hold people to the same standards of decorum and manners and I love that. You have far too many opinions on the way I cook in the kitchen and I hate that. And all of it, all of you and this life we've built adds up to something far beyond my best case scenario. I love you, I love us, and our life and I'm so glad - so incredibly glad - that I, that we, took this chance together.

March 1st 2010 - just married

Having crossed the threshold
(not my favorite threshold, but happy nonetheless)

Februcrappy

February is my least favourite month. There is something so incredibly grey and tired about it. Every year I enter into it apprehensively, moving through its fog with trepidation, knowing it has full capability to trip me up and drag me under. I do not like February. Generally there are two lights in its favour. Three if you count the fact that it's short as months go. But this year I managed to overlook Pancake Day (easily done in a country that's a) never heard of it and b) thinks pancakes are those dumpy doughy lumps they like to stack and soak in maple syrup) and also had food poisoning on, yes on, Valentines Day. 

Also laden upon February this year is a host of Waiting, if you can have a host of Waiting, which I think you can. Waiting for feedback from agents (which eventually came and succeeded on casting more shadow on this grey dull month, so now I'm waiting for inspiration or inclination or just some oomph to revise, restart, reeverything); waiting for Green Card renewal (more on this another time, but basically we can't book our China trip until this arrives and it's been not arriving for months now); waiting for my professional life to look livelier and like it might actually be gaining momentum (it might... I'm waiting) and the usual February Waiting, which is waiting for February to hurry up and end already. 

Too many days this month I have felt inexplicably sad, an empty sort of sad that has no focus or reason, just sad. And I blame the month entirely. 

Dear February, 

You suck - go away. 

Sincerely

Hannah 

Snow

You may have been informed that we had a little snow last week (for some of you, this information will have come by way of snow burial, for others the BBC). I struggle to explain to you snowless people (and Englanders, no matter how many centimetres more than usual may have fallen in recent years, you are still snowless) just how much snow fell. 30.5 inches doesn't quite do it, nor does three feet (or thereabouts). It felt like a joke, except it was (is) everywhere and shoveling it felt like an exercise in futility. Especially when Jeremy started shoveling it off the roof, onto the deck and I was supposed to move the roof snow and the deck snow, elsewhere. Except that elsewhere quickly got filled up with snow. My solution was to get onto the roof also, as shoveling from a roof top is slightly more fun than from the ground, buoyed as I was by a sense of hilarity and farce and there's the minor thrill of the possibility of falling off the roof (which is muted by the fact that there's a mattress of snow to land on so not massively risky).

I learned this, last weekend: Snow days, in principle, are awesome. Because, in principle, they involve a day off of work sat on the couch in a snuggie with coffee and my cat and catching up on crappy TV because Jeremy's office doesn't dole out snowdays (and Jeremy moans about crappy TV that isn't animated). And that does happen and it is wonderful, but the snowday principle forgets to include the caveat of the three days of shoveling that must follow. And the week or more of walking a mile to the train and doubling ones commute because there's no parking at the office. And the necessity of wellies everywhere and always, because the icy mush on the ground pretends to be shallow but it is not.

I guarantee I will have forgotten this caveat as soon as the next snowday roles around.



Below is my weekend of Snow in pictures.

Day 1 - wake up to no work and a blizzard. Watch TV with Tronky
 thinking snow days are the best thing in the world ever. 

Day 2 - wake up to more snow than
 you've ever seen in your life ever. 

Jeremy suggests running 10 miles in it. Funny. 

Spend the rest of day 2 shoveling / watching Jeremy shovel. 

Jeremy didn't seem to see that building a
snow fort is just more, optional, shoveling. 

Spend the evening drinking hot-toddies

And eating cheese scones 

And soup with homemade bread

Finish by snuggling with Tronky

Day three was indistinguishable from day two, except that any snow novelty had thoroughly disappeared, there was less whiskey and more running 10 miles on a treadmill. Actually, day three was awful. Day four was pretty much just as awesome as day one though so it was all OK in the end. 

When I grow up.

 Everyone I know, well maybe not everyone but most, well maybe not most but many, is reevaluating, reassessing, recalculating. We’ve reached or are reaching that final line where we can no longer kid ourselves that we’re kids, that irrefutable truth that is THIRTY and we’re considering where we are and who we are and in what direction we are heading and we are deciding if we’re OK with these things. For most of those many, the answer seems to be No or Meh or Not Entirely Certain. Not that we’re all depressed and miserable and laden with regret - everyone I know going through this has sizeable positives in their lives. And Yet. We've grown up, but are we who / what / where we want to be?

I wish I'd figured out I loved writing sooner. I wish I'd been confident enough to believe I might be really good at something. I wish I'd never given up horse-riding and had taken French rather than German (nothing against German except that NO ONE speaks it other than Germans, Austrians and a few Swiss, who speak it wrong). I wish the Atlantic were smaller and flights were cheaper and my cat was more amenable to cuddles. 

None of those things are massively attainable though. I could hypothetically learn french, although I can hear Jeremy scoffing from 30 miles away given he bought me the whole Rosetta Stone thingy years ago and I am definitely not dreaming in french yet (this could, of course, be something to do with my not using the thing, but it teaches you to answer questions like 'is the boy eating an apple?' which really don't seem particularly useful.)So, wishes that primarily involve time travel for fulfillment aside, what do I want? 

I want to find an occupation where the days are not being counted off in wait for the weekend and which I can do until retirement. I want not to want to retire. That's mostly all I want. That and the body of Gisele, but that likely falls into the wish section. There are various options on the table - going back to school, striving forward in the non-profit world, crossing everything and hoping my book gets published (it's yet to be read and critiqued by my agent so we're a ways away) and becomes an overnight sensation to rival Harry Potter (ha). And then there's the having children thing, which definitely won't help with the Gisele body wish but could potentially be juggled with part time school.

So tonight I'm going to an open house for a Masters in Social Work program. It's just an open house - no commitment, just questions, and to be honest the whole prospect of returning to 'school' has me tired just thinking about it. But then I think about being an actual licensed social worker, able to do therapy (social work is a bit different over here) and to be equipped with the credentials and skills to really help people and I wonder... maybe that's what I want to be when I grow up.

Whose bright idea was this?

Two weeks in to half marathon training and it’s already old and worn and ready for the bin. What possessed me? Why didn't I do something in-between 4 and 13.1 miles? And why, if we can establish that I was possessed for a valid reason and that there was an equally valid reason for the choice in distance which I don’t think we can, did I decide to do it all in 10 weeks?

Jeremy.

"Why not sign up for another race?" (answer - because it's another race) 

“Why run 10 when you could run 13.1?” (answer – because it’s 3.1 miles less)

“Why put it off?” (answer -  because then it’s longer until I have to do it)

“You’ll never just do the running without a goal. You need a goal.” (answer, to unasked question -  bog off)

My mean and horrible husband got me into this. And at the end, if there is one and it doesn't involve tears or death, I’ll most likely say it’s all because of him and thank goodness he pushed me blah blah blah. Dear future me – you don’t have a half marathon to train for because you've already run one so shut up.

I have three miles to run tonight. And five to run tomorrow. And all I want to do is drink wine after not drinking it all week. Never get married. 

I wrote that on Friday. Since then I've ran three times, including the five mile run which was the furthest one I've yet to do. And somewhere in there I realized that each run goes a little like this: 

Before - "I'm an idiot for doing this and Jeremy's a sod for thinking it up. I really just want to sit down with wine. What? It's a no wine night? It's a no wine night and I have to run? I actually am insane. Everything is tired and heavy and I think if I move too fast I might die. Bleurggggggh"

During - "I'm an idiot for doing this and Jeremy's a sod for thinking it up. I want a shower. Ugh I hate being sweaty. Is there such a thing as running knickers, cause if there is I think I need them. I want water. My ankle itches. Why won't Jeremy slow down. Are we half way yet?* I'm definitely having a heart attack"

After - "Wow. I'm amazing. Jeremy, thank you so much for helping me do this. I feel so great. I can definitely do this."

Aaaaaand repeat. 8 weeks of this and 30 runs remaining. It's gonna get repetitive. 

* Like every horse I've ever ridden, I magically speed up as soon as we hit half way.