All I ever really cared about was Tuesday…

Every Monday I get excited…  my mind starts whirring around all the possible items that I will get to list and explain my love for for the week… I LOVE doing my lists, they are one of my favourite parts of the week… I was desperately sad to have not been able to do a list for the last two weeks, not only because of my inappropriate love affair with all things list-related, but also because there was SO much hearting going on… I honestly don’t think there’s ever been a period of time that I have hearted SO much… my book has had SO many pages filled out over the last week and I can promise you that this list, it will be quite possibly the longest and most fabulous list to date. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll TOTALLY be jealous of my hair (even I’M jealous of it and it’s my own bloody hair!)
So without any further ado, the list!

 Muffin… bound to be the first thing on the list, really… he’s now officially existed in real life with me and gone and pretty much every single moment of it was absolute bliss… I attempted to envelope myself entirely in the fact that I had him here with me…. I still found myself in shock sometimes, like it hadn’t completely sunk in. I’d look at him and think, ‘holy CRAP, this boy is actually here with me!’ it was all very surreal but amazingly perfect… I love every single tiny thing about him. his hair, his eyeballs, his nose, his clothes, the way he smells (personal favourite thing about him), the relative smallness of his ears compared to mine (23mm smaller, actually), his tattoos, his feets, his hands, his neck, his bear arms, his piercings, his voice, the way he talks, his taste in things, his sense of humour… I literally I could go on for forever… I love him so much. I know I sound like a stupidly gushy girl right now, but I am so happy and I don’t give a crap. I could exist every single moment snuggled up to this boy and never regret a single thing I might miss in the meantime. He is perfect in every single way possible… I never actually knew it was possible to find someone who is everything you ever could dream of asking for and then some, but here I am with this boy in my life who has superseded any and all hopes, dreams and desires by leaps and bounds… he’s incredible and still baffles me.  

Watching my two favourite boys bond… I love that I have been given the rare chance to watch the two most important boys in my life bond… Pow, the boy I spend more time with than anyone EVER was playing gigs the last two Saturdays which we attended… the first was in Nottingham, we arrived and after the sound check I perched on a booth with Amy (hang on, I’ll get to her later!) whilst Muffin and Pow went through the gazillion photos Muffin had on his camera from his trip so far… I just sat with a stupidly happy grin on my face from that moment on as I watched them share little laughs and chats… it was outrageously special to witness… to see Pow, this boy who has been a solid rock and listened to me piss and moan for the last five years meet and play nice with Muffin, the boy who stole my heart ten years ago… it’s magical. I was so terrified that they might not get on and I would have to have that “dan, I really don’t think you should be moving away with him” chat with Pow. To know now that I won’t have to have that chat… it’s a relief. I told Muffin up front that if Pow didn’t approve then I would seriously reconsider moving back stateside… that I wanted his blessing before I committed myself to anything. After the last gig, this last Saturday we three were riding a coach back from London. Muffin was sleeping (precious bear!) and Pow and I talked… I asked him what he thought of Muffin and he said that he absolutely adored him and that he rarely bonds with someone so quickly… since then Pow’s been speaking his praises, my favourite being at din dins Sunday night when Pow offered a little toast (with his cup of tea) saying that he felt it was an honour to meet Muffin and that he was going to take care of me until we were together again. Pow loves my boyfriend and I love that fact… I love that I can speak to Pow about Muffin and he’ll validate my love for him by talking about how amazing he is… this, knowing that my two boys bonded, this makes my little heart much more relaxed.
Sex… for the longest time I have been living on my own little planet with regard to sex… my relationship with the estranged left a lot to be desired. It got to the point where I HATED getting into bed with him because I knew he’d harass me and I knew I’d have to offer him another lie about why I didn’t want it THAT time. If I’m being honest, I’ve never really been THAT bothered about sex anyways… I’ve had three partners in my life and in between two of them, there was a three-year gap with little or no upset on my behalf. I spend a great deal of time wondering what is wrong with me when I read all those women’s magazines or watching those female empowerment films and see the highly-sexed women who have no less than three sex toys and two partners a week… I always wondered why I never had that huge, deep-seated burning in my little loins for a little rumpy-pumpy. It wasn’t until about two months after I started speaking to Muffin again that it seemed a switch was flicked. Up until his arrival all I could think about was how amazingly brilliant it was going to be…. Now that his visit has come and gone, I have officially lost another six lbs which I can only attribute to the fact that I can’t get enough of bed-themed funtime with him. It was all so new and exciting and he makes me feel incredible and so, so comfortable. I feel a little like I’ve just woken up and am experiencing all this stuff for the first time in nine years… I’m no Carrie from Sex in the City, but I am well on my way to being…. Oh I don’t know, some girl who likes a good rogering on a very regular basis.  
Pow… there are few people in the world that I adore more than him… we’ve both been extremely busy the last couple of weeks so we’ve not spent a GREAT deal of time together, but we’ve still been in contact and it’s been nice… when the three of us went out for the meal together it was just nice to have eye contact with Pow… to gauge how he’s feeling and to talk to him… my favourite thing about him is, when he and I are hanging out, he watches me. I don’t know if he thinks I don’t notice, but he does it all the time… when we’re at his watching films, at dinner, just talking, at a gig… he can occasionally be found just watching me and it makes me feel so comfortable. So when we were out at dinner the other night he watched me for ages and it… sigh, there’s no words to explain how it makes me feel. He’s just such a special boy and I have no idea what I’d do if he wasn’t in my life.
Painting Tipp-Ex on my nails
Mousakka
Aubergines
Carla Bruni
Pecans
Trying out a new recipe
My polka-dot dress
Collaborating on projects with Pow
Big lips
The fact that my boss sent me an email that said, ‘FANTASTICO!’ on it
Pressing warm photocopies to my face 
Morningtime phonecalls from Janeyface… these are my favourite because most mornings, whilst I am on my way into workies I will get a text from the janey that simply says, ‘call you?’ to which I ALWAYS reply in the positive. She rings and I walk down the street in a gleeful haze of laughter and knowing that she is one of my best friends in the entire world. I love the looks I get as I shriek and double over in fits of laughter in the middle of the pavement at half seven in the morning… I love the fact that we do this mostly every morning.
The fact that Robert Z’Dar added me on facebook
Board games
Anticipation
My Zen garden
The pig face
When Chevy’s happy
The torsos in my lounge
Big windows
Snap Dragons
Poppies
Bachelors Buttons
Excellent moustaches
Cherry Carmex
Otto who works in the canteen at workies
How excited everyone got for Muffin’s arrival
The first Muffin/danie photo
Listening to The Muffin breathe as he sleeps
My pink hair
Chicken Tikka Kebabs
Stephanie Smith
Dave Culleton
Just lying around and watching a film with The Muffin
Being warm… not hot, warm
‘Caribbean Queen’ by Billy Ocean
The very first glance I got of The Muffin
Learning how to be close to someone again
Learning about someone’s daily foibles
How big the holes in my ears are now (28mm and counting)
Muffin Kisses
Kissing Muffin’s left shoulder
Hugging Muffin
‘The Hangover’
London trip with The Muffin... and all the loose cannon photos that were taken (please see below)

My hair
The Museum of Natural History
Ringing the bell on the bus
The dogtags The Muffin had made for me
My Vans
The smell of Muffin kisses
The fact that Kate named a calf on Rich’s farm ‘Manface’ 
Amy Blackwell… no word of a lie, this girl is just magical… she is the first of ALL of Pow’s girlfriends that I have ever been allowed to meet and she is wonderful. She was out two Saturdays ago when Muffin and I attended the HJG gig and her and I bonded like woah. I’m not sure why we bonded so much on Saturday in a place FULL of people as opposed to in Ali’s house on a relaxing night in (our last and first meeting) but I enjoyed myself nonetheless… her and I sat in a huddled corner and stared at our perspective boys, turning to one another regularly to squinch up our faces and express how much we love them without the need to shout. We drank and chatted and generally had a wonderful time. She loves him so much and that’s what he needs most…. He needs someone that’s going to love him despite his little freak-outs and just hold on to him tight. I reckon she’ll do him a world of good and I am pleased I’ve finally been allowed to meet one of the girlfriends. I love Amy and I cannae wait for our next bonding session which will be taking place Friday. Yay!
Hot Japanese Girl
Pound Coins
‘I Love You Phillip Morris’
Waking up to Muffin’s face 
The BFF super-date that is in the pipeline… I am SUPER pumped for this… as I’ve mentioned before, I will be getting my scalp tattooed… I will be doing this soon and janey will be coming up to visit so’s she can hold my tiny hand and cheer me on. Not only that, but now, Pow will be prancing to mine the night before so’s the three of us can have a super bff partytime. I LOVE the thought of having a fabulous night in with my two favourites… I honestly can’t wait! SQUEE!
Really cold cans of cola
Muffin’s new tattoos
Making fun of The Muffin’s estranged partner… who is completely insane and a total biotch. I HATE her name, her face and everything to do with her… I mock her mercilessly…. It pleases me.
Popping my wrists
Being certain of things 

Jaacqy
Goncalves
Potterton
Writing on my hands
Mathlock Bath
Stretching my ears
Foggy days
Muffin texts
When bits of my tattoos peak out of the sleeves of my shirts/jackets
Mini Rolls
PaperMate Liquid Expresso pens
How completely insane some people can be… a prime example of this being the fact that an old friend (who is consequently NOT an old friend anymore… just a person I have fond memories of and who seems to hate my stinking guts and creep back into my life in an explosive way periodically to try to hurt me in as many ways as possible) seems to have been posting status updates on Facebook recently complaining that it was HER idea for me to get the ducks tattooed on my scalp… this is funny for three reasons… 1. I have not spoken to this particular individual for nearly nineteen months and when we WERE talking I had absolutely NO inclination to get my scalp tattooed at all, whatsoever (we DID, however discuss HER getting the ducks tattooed on her fat arm once, for about forty seconds). 2. It was Pow and Lee Lee who suggested it to me about five weeks ago, in my house, in my bedroom. 3. It WASN’T her idea. I mean really, who in god’s name actually feels it’s appropriate to publicly complain about someone so ridiculously stupid? She needs to get a life.  

MC Lars… Oh. My. God. When Muffin said that he wanted to go to some gig in Birmingham I was reluctant and a little moody about it… I don’t really go to gigs anymore and when I do, they are small, VERY local gigs that don’t cost more than a fiver to get into… I don’t go to gigs that cost more than ten pounds JUST go get in and cost a further twelve pounds to travel to the locale and a FURTHER thirty-five pounds for a hotel room since it is too far away to get home on time. because all these factors were in place for this gig I was a little moody about having to go but I went because I wanted my big bear to be happy and LOVED the idea of a romp in a hotel room with him. we arrived in Birmingham and got a taxi to the hotel… we mocked it’s tiny size and pov interior before prancing into central Birmingham for some shopping and din dins. After stuffing our bellies with pizza and our minds with serious future talks we hopped into a cab to the O2 Arena where Muffin lost it and got super excited. We arrived JUST in time to see MC Lars, who muffin had been singing the praises of for the last two days. We pushed our way up as near to the front as possible and they began… the INSTANT I saw him I fell in love (or was that lust?) and the moment the first words came out of his mouth I knew I had to marry him. he’s hysterical and has a stage presence that makes me swoon. When they finished performing Muffin found him in the crowd and said hi. We chatted with him for a little while about Muffin being in the ARMY and my living in England after moving from the US. After about six minutes he had to go but said we had to go to the after party and told us where we needed to go. After the gig we pranced to a local pub and waited with pints… we kissed and snuggled and made fun of one another until the arrival of Lars. He saw us and immediately waved and came over… he sat with us and we proceeded to monopolize all his attention for the rest of the night. he got us pints, shots and talked with us until the wee hours in the morning when the band was being herded into a taxi to the hotel… I can officially say now that I am in love with MC Lars and you should listen to him and hang out with him after a gig,… he’s a fabulous boy! 
Our night at the Paragon Hotel... quite possibly the most shite hotel in the world but magical nonetheless!
Dane's signature

 My newest tattoo... yes, it's a vagina and yes, it is permanent! 
Feeling like people love me
The fact that Stephanie rang me to see how i was yesterday
Blowing my nose
When Chris isn't satan when we talk
Dane's dad
Bananas
Planning projects
How easy it is to talk to Dane
having the ducks together for the first time ever... a tattoo dane and i always said we would both get... something i designed when i was fifteen just before i started dating Muffin... he got his ages ago and i got mine about three years ago... they are now bff!

the following photos... 

 

 

i love you, i can't touch you anymore...

the last time i saw him was yesterday morning, 29^th March at 0708am...
we held one another in the queue together until I wasn’t allowed to be snuggled up to him anymore and then we held one another over the barrier until he was too far up the queue to be able to touch me anymore... even then he left the queue three times to come hold me and kiss me. The final kiss was the best one… I held the left side of his face with my right hand and kissed him as hard as I could. My left arm wrapped as tight around him as possible. I held my breath and memorized every single detail that I could in the seventeen seconds we held the kiss… I memorized the smell, his eyes, his lips, the taste, his hands on me… everything. My mind scrambled in a million difference directions in an effort to commit every single detail possible to memory.
i watched him until he disappeared through the final check-in... i watched the space where i saw him last for a further ten minutes. I’m not sure why I watched the empty space so long... I don’t know if maybe i was hoping he would suddenly come back out and say that he just couldn’t leave me and that he was staying forever...
dave asked me if i wanted to wait there until his plane left... i declined, knowing that if i stayed it would just lead to more crying and i would most likely have to give in to one of those cries that ends in vomiting and i didn't quite feel like being sick.
On the way through the airport i sobbed violently, hating already that i was walking without his hand in mine. feeling immediately like part of me was just gone... like someone had taken a large cutting implement and torn half of my limbs off... it sounds cliché and I’ve never felt anything like it before but it's fucking agony. I actually felt like the best thing to do at that moment is slump in a corner and fall apart… I had no strength to walk or communicate and could barely stay awake by the time we got to Dave’s car. The entire journey home just featured me sobbing in between tiny cat-naps.
Arriving home was horrific…  more painful than I thought it would be. More painful than it had been when Chris moved out. Somehow, without the loss of any furniture or the stuff on my shelves or cupboards, my house felt emptier than it ever had… I sat in the dining room with Dave for a short time, recalling that a mere eight hours prior I had been sat there with The Muffin and Pow… I instantly hated the dining room and wanted to be out of there.
After dave left I dragged myself up the stairs and stood at my bedroom door for two minutes before holding my breath and going in… I stepped past the threshold and waited… performed an internal investigation to see what emotions my body was going to throw at me… I meandered around the room, touching everything I could remember him touching, smelling everything I thought might smell like him. I flicked on my PC and stared at it… not really sure what to do. I opened my email and started writing him… within three words I started to cry again.
all i knew how to do at that moment was cry. I sat, slumped in my chair and stared at the photo on my desktop (which changes daily now, to my newest favourite photo of Muffin and Dan); replaying in my head the fake argument we had when he saw I hadn’t changed my desktop photo to one of him within two days of his arrival.
the crying didn't start there, in that chair though... it started two mornings prior when i realized i would only have one more morning watching him... i woke and hated myself for not memorizing every single detail about every single morning he was here. i hate that on that last morning i had the stupid compulsion to get up and start a load of laundry and have a bath instead of staying in bed and committing more of his face to my memory. i hate that i didn't spend more time touching him with my eyes closed so i could have named every single blemish and curve in the event of my going blind... i hate that i didn't plant more kisses on his face and neck... that i didn't spend more time kissing every single inch of his body...
instead of memorizing him i opted to sit in the bath and cry... janey and I have been discussing emo things of late… this comes as a result of some of her own personal crisis… she and I have been joking about all the emo things that she has been doing (one thing being that she wept into a bowl of muesli and then proceeded to eat the muesli and her accompanying tears). After a suitable amount of bathtime crying I stopped and thought to myself how much janey would laugh because I was actually just bathing in my tears.
After my bath I kissed him… I kissed from the big toe on his right foot up his leg, his side, his shoulder, down his right arm and every one of his fingertips. I laid next to him and kissed his face until he couldn’t stay asleep any longer…
The remainder of the morning was spent looking at one another and kissing each other’s faces…  I existed between states of weepy and he cuddledattacked me when he noticed I was getting misty in the eyes. We took photos and had some amazing sex before we pranced to the store for things for din dins. The whole day was spent talking… we talked about the future and what we would do… how we were going to work things out and how much we were going to hate being apart… how painful it was going to be.
A nice din din was had with Pow and then we packed his stuff… a little ball developed in my stomach that got harder and harder with every passing minute. I became tense and worried about what my emotional state would develop into. After he finished packing we laid in bed and talked... talked and touched one another’s faces. We tangled our legs up for the last time and kissed until we fell into our last sleep together for at least six months. The sleep lasted two hours before we had to get up…
the journey to the airport was horrific and painful. I kept kissing his face as he snoozed… the remainder of our time together felt numb and like it didn’t happen… something to do with checking-in, getting a coffee, walking to the terminal… all I remember is that I wanted to hold his hand as much as possible and I didn’t kiss him nearly enough.
Fast-forward to the beginning of this post… here I am today… at work… miserable. I feel like I am completely out of juice and ready to lie down for a nap for the next six months. I have never, ever felt anything like this in my life. It’s agony. I never could have prepared myself for what I have been feeling… the only person I can imagine understands is The Muffin, purely because he’s going through it as well…
I got to speak to him this evening which was just what I needed… I miss his voice so much… I miss him so much.
Please enjoy some of my favourite photos from his visit. 

You made me forget my dreams, when I woke up to you sleeping…

Nothing could have prepared me for all the things I have felt over the last six days… absolutely nothing and no one. The rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts I have processed in just under a week does not compare in any way to any amusement or theme park ride… 

Friday-12^th March
the day the muffin left Iraq destined for me… he and I hadn’t spoken much over the previous two days due to issues at his workies and him putting the final touches on the cake that would be his trip. Danie spent the ENTIRE day on tiny pins and needles awaiting any form of contact possible from her one and only. The first contact arrived in the form of an email at 09:27am saying he had arrived in Kuwait and he had done all his checkpoint stuff and had a sassy photo taken of himself. He said that he was to reconvene at 1400 my time for his itinerary and that he would let me know anything he could as soon after that as possible.

For the next four hours I was a disgusting trainwreck of a person to work with. I kept squealing to everyone that he would be finding out soon and ‘OMGILOVEHIMOMG!’ when the time came for me to leave workies (at 1630) I was slightly deflated and running through a series of events in my mind that played out with him having to stay in Kuwait on a layover until Wednesday and that I wouldn’t see him for another week (a not-uncommon thing to happen in the ARMY, apparantly).

Text after text poured in through the entire day from various friends asking if he had arrived yet… I just replied in the negative and sat with my rumbly belly, trying to calm my ever-increasing nausea by consuming as many Fox’s Glacier Mints as possible.

I made it to my empty home at 1700 and fidgeted. I sat, then stood, then tidied, then crocheted, then tried to watch a film, then sat, then watched Family Guy… this process went on until around 2020 when my phone went. His voice sounded perfect… he told me to grab a pen and paper as he had some information to give me…. words were flung around that had to do with flight numbers, times of arrival, airports and… sigh… times of arrival; that all-important thing. He was due to arrive on the Saturday morning at 0705 at Birmingham International Airport (BHX). This meant I would be holding him for the first time in eight years in less than twelve hours. We spent the rest of our time telling each other about love and then the phone cut off. I instantly rang Dave (of the recently lopped dreadlocks and of the chariot we would be retrieving muffin in) and squealed about when he would arrive… we planned for him to come pick me up at half past five and we would make our way to BHX. 

Saturday-13^th March
The following eight hours were torture… actually painful and agonizing. I bumbled around the house, tried to sleep, watched a film, crocheted, rang janeyface and drew some stuff. At four I decided to get dressed and occupied the next hour prancing between all the mirrors that live in my house in my dress, heels and tights, making sure I looked fabulous from all angles… making sure that the muffin’s first sight of me in person in more than eight years was going to be perfect.

Muffin rang again at a quarter to five where he talked about the chocolate treat he had just nomed and how excited he was… soon after I put the phone down dave arrived and I became hysterical. My hysteria continued in the car for the entire journey where the only things I could repeat were “fuck,” “shit” and “I can’t believe I’m actually going to be seeing him.”

All Tourettes issues aside, I was okay… I felt an overwhelming sense of calm that I couldn’t shake. My heart felt lighter than it had in a very long time… like it had been on a marathon and was just on the final stretch to the finish line.

We arrived at the airport and we perched. Dave interviewed me outside and filmed my hysterics as I frantically watched the terminal entrance despite the fact that I knew he wouldn’t be arriving for at LEAST another twenty minutes. We then sat and waited… at 0708 I became concerned that I might die. Every single time a person came out of the terminal I hopped around in my seat only to deflate when I realized it wasn’t him.

It was 0722 when I saw the beautiful red-shirted creature emerge from the hallway… it was then that I felt my stomach fall and I immediately began hitting dave in the leg, repeating, “holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…” I couldn’t stand for a moment, so I waited… I watched him come around the steel fence (which I hated the first instant I saw it because I KNEW that it was most likely placed there to protect the new arrivals from potential snuggle attacks) and then I stood up. When he was within a yard of me I heard him say, “oh my god” and I fell into his arms. I kissed his neck and smelled him. I smelled his right shoulder, his neck, his hair and his chest. My legs wobbled and, much to my surprise, I didn’t cry. I just held his head and felt his beautifully giant bear-arms hold me as tight as they would.

For the first time in eight years I was in his arms… THE Muffin was there, in person, with me… this boy that I have been spending the last eight years without; he was there, WITH ME. It all felt very numb but incredibly perfect. All my concerns about it feeling like I was hugging a stranger were gone the instant I felt his arms around me. He kissed me and I remembered… my lips immediately began to hark back to when they were bff with his lips and they were happy… replaying every amazingly magical memory from all those years ago. We held one another again and then came back to the real world. I introduced him to Dave and we went to eat… well… they ate; I sat and watched the muffin.

The journey home was a blur… he might have held my hand, we may have talked, we possibly shopped, I’m sure I kissed him… who knows. All I know is when I arrived home I wanted to hold him and have it be just me and him. Stacey was kind enough to be out of the house for the day so we arrived, said our goodbyes to dave and instantly fell into one another’s arms again… honestly, I could have just stood there in my hallway and held him and made myself familiar with his arms again for the rest of the day but instead we went upstairs and we talked… I whacked some music on (my super megamix consisting mostly of The Magnetic Fields, Andrew Jackson Jihad and Ali Pow3rs) and we did the inevitable. Eight years is a long time and it’s been bloody ages since I’ve been satisfied in the ‘bedroom department’ (for lack of a better phrase).

Fast-forward a few hours and open scene to a happy danie and dane, legs tangled, kisses being placed across each other’s faces, almost as if we were tagging special locations on a map. The sun was shining through the curtains in all the right places and at that specific moment I immediately felt like I was home.

Laid there, all I could think about was how much I loved him… how I couldn’t believe that he was there. I couldn’t believe that I finally, after all these years, have been allowed the luxury of feeling his touch again, kissing his shoulders and staring at his face. My favourite thing about all of this, every single second that we have had together, is that it doesn’t feel like ANY time has passed… it feels like I only saw him just the other day, like the eight years that we have been pining after one another through haven’t existed. Everything fits perfectly and EXACTLY like it did eight years ago. There’s no unfamiliarity or nervousness… it all feels like we’ve been together for years with no stupid lapses or breaks.

As of today, right this instant, I can say that I have not slept more than seventeen hours since I woke up last Friday morning… I don’t want to stop looking at his face. I just lie there at night and watch him, kiss him… I want to memorize his body. I am so terrified that once these two weeks are over I won’t have filled enough 3-ring binders with information about him in the filing room that is in my mind. I want to remember every single little tiny thing that I possibly can. Every blemish, scar, smell, hair, tattoo, wrinkle… I want to commit every aspect of him to memory.

My mental filing system has been being slowly filled now every second of every day for the last six days… I have carefully watched everything from the way he eats to the order he puts his clothes on… I know what position is his favourite to fall asleep in and I know how often he grinds his teeth every night.

Sunday morning we rushed to the coach station for our trip to London where the muffin had to jump his first bff hurdle in the shape of janeyface.

The three of us pranced in a mostly-drunken stupor and had the most wonderfully glorious time on Monday leaving Tuesday and Wednesday free for danie and dane to be tourists. I honestly don’t think I have ever walked more in my entire life, but it was all just perfect because I was seeing and doing everything with him. We walked all of London and kissed every chance we got. At the end of the trip janey offered her official seal of approval… citing that he is incredibly lovely and not at all what she expected… that she loved how he could have actual fun with us unlike the estranged. He joins in and plays along with the inappropriate banter and shouting alongside just lying around like a slug with us when the mood strikes…

The second bff hurdle was jumped last night… I’m gonna be honest, I was incredibly nervous for him to meet Pow. Like, I KNEW janey would love him because that’s just how she is, but I was very worried my little bag of Pow Pow would be in one of his famous off moods which would make the meeting awkward. Muffin and I arrived at the pub and got the drinks in then perched in wait for the arrival of the other man in my life. We held hands and kissed until he arrived. We sat, chatted for a few minutes and then I broke up the conversation because my stomach was threatening to cause a scene if it wasn’t fed IMMEDIATELY.

We talked, drank and ate for the next three hours and I can honestly say I have never been happier. To be sat in a not-too-full pub on a Thursday evening with my two favourite boys in the world drinking a pint of elderflower cider… that is what I imagine heaven to be like.

When The Muffin went to the bar for another drinky I enquired as to what Pow thought of my one and only and he said that seeing me with him is nice because I seem calmer… that when I was with The Estranged I always seemed so stressed and loud and with The Muffin I just seem more relaxed and happy… and that The Muffin seemed genuine and had pretty eyes (yeah, Pow’s a homosexual <3).

So there it is, the second bff seal of approval. We will be bonding more with Pow over the next several days in the shape of visits to the museum, gaol and Darley Park to meet oinky (the water buffalo who LOVES cakes). Sunday we will all retire to mine for a big, fat roast din din and films, which will be even more heavenly, I presume…

You know, all wonderful aside, I feel like right now, all I want to do is just lie around with him… I am still very much getting used to having another person in my life again… sharing a bed, holding his hand and planning meals and days out… it’s all very nice and makes me feel incredible, but it is also very, very strange… to have someone there now, putting their arm around me and touching me with a very gentle and loving hand… I’m not used to it and it makes me feel really lovely.

On the opposite side of that same coin though, I have very much grown to love my independence. In the time since the estranged and I split I have become a very self-sufficient girl and I love how my world has developed. It is odd having someone there who either relies on me or who expects me to rely on them… like, I’m fitting into that little room nicely, but it was BLOODY hard to convince myself to go in there… I am a born-again independent and I HATE to feel like I have to rely on people because it makes me feel like less of a person… he doesn’t though, he makes me feel like it’s okay to sometimes ask for help.

All-in-all, this whole muffin experience has been incredibly helpful and magical… 

i believe in a thing called tuesday

Well… here we are… the tenth Tuesday and the eighth IHTATT of 2010. I am still prancing through my little life existing for one blissful moment after another and am utterly, absolutely delighted. The year so far has offered me almost exclusively wonderful and I couldn’t possibly have asked for more than I have received. 

I guess a great deal of what I have received has come at the very meagre price of my eternal excitement for life… were it not for my ability to bounce back when things seem the lowest I could easily be living at the bottom of the hill again… granted, the camp would be pretty with lots of colours and patterns, and I TOTALLY would have mastered campfire cupcakes by now, it would still be lonely and I would still feel daunted every single day. 

I strive and succeed to find beautiful things every day… I have a book that I keep with me at all times that proudly bares the words ‘I HEART THINGS AND THINGS!’ on the front amongst the ever-changing collage of pictures that completely cover the entire outside of the book… in my book I attempt to write at LEAST five things every day. Most days I supersede this goal with abundance, but occasionally I struggle… and when I struggle, all I have to do is look at the cover of the book or look around me. I do nothing but surround myself with things that I love. My room is a beautiful collection of things that make me pleased and smile, my desk at the office is home to the happy mess that I call work and my mobile is ever-pinging at me, signalling the delivery of messages from all my favourite creatures in the world (top texters this week: Janey, Pow and Stephanie! Yay!)

Every list I make every week is a compilation of all the things I have written in my book for the week… I love my book and… well. I guess I thought I would just offer a little insight into my world and how I make my lists…

Please, enjoy my list this week: 

Diet cola

My laundry detergent
Pow pow phone calls… lately these have been coming in more often and the content has been more fabulous… these are my favourites because when I talk to him we talk about so many things and I can totally just have a laugh. The bulk of our conversations revolve around Johnny, which I ADORE talking about at the moment. When we’re not talking about Johnny, I’m making fun of him or we are talking about our personal things… I love that I have a friend that I talk to almost daily and that I know I can rely on for a phone call to cheer me up at any time… I love that we have a billion little inside jokes and pre-written scripts that we play out no less than three times each time we speak… mostly I just love talking on the phone, but when it’s with someone you love as much as I love him, it makes it all that much better.
Planning muffin’s trip… the last week or two have been a flurry of me filling in my diary with the events that will take place during the muffin’s visit… I have been filling it in, highlighting it orange and ringing and texting people to make sure that they are around for OMGDANISFUNTIME. It’s just been incredible fun to be able to plan things and organise nights out… I am most likely looking forward to these two weeks just as much as Dane because it will give me a chance to go sight-seeing and see a lot of people that i don’t get to see as often as I would like. On the itinerary are cinema dates, a gig, nights in hotels, OMGLONDON, tattoos, playdates with Pow and nights out at the pub… The best bit about EVERYTHING is that I will be doing it all with him… my beautiful muffin… who better to share all of these things with than him?
OMGTHREEDAYS… literally… I am dying. People are actually slightly worried that I haven’t freaked out as much as they had anticipated, but inside, I AM freaking out. Inside, my heart feels like it might burst out of my chest. It seems that every passing day causes my laugh to become more hysterical… a fact we discovered last night whilst on a playdate with Pow, Dean and Stacey. Overall though, I am really okay. I think more than anything, I’ve become INCREDIBLY nervous. I feel a lot of tension in my little tummy at the thought now of HIM being here in three days. This time in three days, I will be waiting for his phone call… freaking out every time my mobile goes off. I am aware that he will most likely not show up until Saturday, but a girl can dream, yes?
Alice in Wonderland in 3D
Popping spots
Cutting and colouring my own hairs
Felt-tip marker pens
Danish phone calls… these are special for multiple reasons… special because they are not as often as I would like, so I have to appreciate them more when I DO get them… but also special because I get to hear his voice. The instant I hear it I immediately fall in love with him all over again. His voice brings me back to the first couple of days when we were dating when I was fifteen… curled up on my bed, writhing around in glee because I had found THE ONE. I was so in love with him and there was nothing I could do to hide it… his voice takes me back to those nights… fifteen years old, giggling on the phone and whispering ‘I love you’ as many times as possible in between pauses. I love every single thing he makes me feel… everything. He is an amazing boy and I can’t wait to see him again.

ManFace… lol. This is the female that my estranged husband is currently seeing… he met her three days after he and I split and started shagging her seven days after that. She got off on a bad note with me in what would be a story too long to tell here… basically, she lied to me and I hate liars. Her loving nickname is derived from the fact that she looks surprisingly like a man… not too dissimilar to Rocky Balboa or Robert Z’Dar. She is, from what I understand, incredibly lovely, and you know, I don’t doubt that for a second. I am sure she is really delightful and to be honest, I am also sure that she and I would get on like a house on fire, were she not a liar… a liar with the face of a man. I was attempting to refrain from posting an entry about her, but a series of texts this morning from Janeyface inspired me. apparantly, from what I have been told, she was down in London with The Estranged meeting up with what used to be an old friend of OURS, Stuart (please see: Arch Enemy #2), who chris has decided to become bff with again since our split. Janey’s ‘husband’ seems to have some serious infatuation with her (which I can only suspect is attributed to two facts, she IS indeed lovely and also, he HATES the friendship I have with his ‘wife’ and wants to drive a nice little wedge in any way that he possibly can), so he decided to hang out with her, The Estranged and Stuart yesterday… he rang Janey at workies yesterday evening inviting her out and my poor little creature was too tired to attend, so she went home. It seems that this morning, her ‘husband’ divulged that ManFace was quite upset that Janey didn’t come out because she ‘wants to meet her and become friends with her.’ Now, this delights me for multiple reasons… I shall give you two… first; I LOVE that she feels it is not weird to try to become friends with the BEST FRIEND of her new boyfriend’s estranged wife… slightly odd, no? Second; it’s NOT happening. Janey is mine and I am fairly confident that she would make ManFace feel incredibly alienated and uncomfortable whilst just being herself… being the beautiful, wonderful favourite creature of mine that she is. Gah! This pleases me to no end! I cannot STAND ManFace and her disgusting face and I LOVE that she stands no chance with my favourite of favourite creatures… (as a side note, I ALSO love the fact that whilst attempting to appease The Estranged by calling ManFace by her real name nobody I speak to on a regular basis knew who that was, so I have had to revert back to calling her the loving nickname that I concocted for her. Yay for things catching on!)
Talking to my sisters
Talking to Paige… particularly because she seems to have suddenly turned into a tiny adult… I received a tiny parcel from Carmen on Friday which held within it school photos of Evan and Paige, a letter from Paige and a Valentine made for me by Paige. I decided that I should ring the kids to thank them on Saturday… I spoke to Paige for  ages and we had a fabulous talk about my divorce, school, friends, weight loss, hair dye, tattoos and London. She is just a fabulous little girl and I can’t WAIT to spend more time with her.

My next tattoo booking… Oh. My. God. I honestly don’t think I have EVER been as excited for a tattoo booking as I am for this one. I am scheduled to receive janey into my home on Monday the 26^th of April for a night of fabulous OMGFUNTIME with her and Pow (please see: NO DRINKING!)… Tuesday morning she and I will meet Pow in town at Thai Boran for a giant English breakfast before prancing next door to the tattoo shop to get my next tattoo… I will be getting the very famously kitschy three ducks flying… on my side of my head. Yes, that’s right kids… danie is going to get her scalp tattooed and she is SO proud. Janey will hold Danie’s hand through the entire procedure and Pow will attend for a brief time so he can take photos (hopefully with his new camera, SQUEE!), only to meet up with us post-tattoo to go out and get horrifically drunk. It will be quite possibly the GREATEST series of days in the history of the world… ever. So there you have it, danie will be getting her next tattoo on her scalp… Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it!

OMG bacon fries!

Talking to Dane's dad... yeah... being the wonderful female i am, when the muffin told me his parents wanted my contact details and suggested i ring them and talk to them, i did... i was all over that shizz... i ran and spoke to his mum and she was lovely but she's got NOTHING on his dad... we chatted for about twenty minutes and he is just a wonderful, beautiful man. he's since emailed me (in response to an email i sent him with my contact details and the number for the mobile i have secured for dane for his visit) and said, and i quote: 

HI Danie,

 Thank you fro being so efficient and reliable....

Dane needs this type of help as he has not had it with the other females he has been with. It is nice to see that someone can be responsible. Again, I hope the two of you have a very pleasant and enjoyable time together.

 Take care

i think they he will be my favourite father-in-law ever... in the world. 

Dr Pepper

My tits

Cardigans

My blue coat

Quavers

Yazoo banana milk

Fried eggs

The feels of the wind as a bus or truck drives  by at speed

Lobsters

Lady Gaga

Yellow hair

Bubble wrap

Internal envelopes

Riding in cars with safe drivers

Pizza

Diet pepsi

Hard-hitting adverts

Stripey tops

Scrubs (the show)

Muffin voice

Wheelchairs

The Sleepaway Camp trilogy

Scotch eggs

Lincolnshire sausages

Diet cola

REALLY curly hair

Cutting my own hair

Really good death scenes in a film

Triangle... if you've not seen it, sort your fucking life out! 

Survive Style 5... please see above!

The fact that all the holes in my ears are different sizes

Spray paint

Discussing controversial things with people

'Parachute' by Cheryl Cole

Milk

People-watching

Gossiping

Vincent Price

Good taxidermy

Bad taxidermy

Pregnant Bellies

Full-body massages

When i feel sexy

Fitting into a pair of trousers for the first time in a long while

Creating a new, sexy spreadsheet

Doughnuts

The Simpsons  

Old episodes of South Park

Scratching my head

Love stories

Polka-dots

Excellent hair

Bears

Calling Pow Pow a paedo

Hot pink

Killer whales

Roseanne

Down pillows

Side ponytails

Boiled potatoes

White wine sauce

Chicken

Dean Whatton

Wearing mis-matched gloves

Red pens

Big Macs

Working on the pig face

When my room is tidy

First Push

Having paper and a pen beside my bed just in case i  have a sudden brainstorm

When the muffin's online in the morning before i go to work

Making responsible, well thought-out decisons

Pow's dad

Talking about and planning new projects with Pow

Brown and yellow together

Glass tree frogs

American Dad

Family Guy

The way people look at me when i get REALLY excited 
Good GOD janey phone calls!

AND my new haircolour!