Stay Tuesday

Urgh… I am very torn about this week… the week itself has been barely ‘blah’ with a slight twinge of ‘hooray,’ a mix that is altogether okay, but could be better… 
Today I find myself in a bit of a melancholy mood, which is odd after the amazing amounts of win that my night last night was made of (please see below for further information). I find myself struggling to be anything but sassy to anyone who says more than one sentence to me… those poor souls don’t seem to know what’s hit them when they approach me and I immediately become filled with sass and moody, spewing all of that forth onto them in an unapologetic way.
I am not entirely happy with my mood today… in fact, I hate it when I am like this… when I have this stupid cloud of arsey floating above me that I can’t seem to shake.
Despite the fact that my levels of arsey are so high, I’ve been very, VERY delighted with a lot of things this week. Please see the list below… 

Powface… yeah yeah, I know… you’re sick of hearing about him. Prior to last night, so was i. despite all the reasons that I should hate him and stop hanging out with him, I just can’t because of magical nights like he and I had last night… from time to time many days will go by with nary a word from him. I hate these lapses for many reasons, the biggest being the fact that they ALWAYS seem to come when I need him the most. As the days whittle by I begin to devise ways that I can be aloof and sassy towards him to show him how much I HATE the way he abandons me, but then… THEN, he ALWAYS shows up like he did last night. Danie was sat at a table at the pub, having just made BFF with an elderly man who was enamoured by her tattoos, she had settled in to study her book about life in the UK. In the days leading up to this date I’d been warning Pow about the fact that I felt like I was going through an ‘ugly phase’ where I hate my hairs, face and body… prior to his arrival I sent him a reminder that I am going through an ugly phase and not to hold it against me. He walked up to me and immediately said, “no you aren’t” and gave me a hug. I held him tight and for a long time, trying to memorize as many things about him as possible then sat back down and he got a drink. He returned to the table and told me that I looked really good, almost like something ‘magical had happened’ to me and I looked completely blissful. I told him to stop being gay. We bantered and talked about his projects and Muffin and Amy and general existence… it was just lovely. It’s always just lovely. Every single moment that I spend with him is highlighted with wonderful… from the way he sometimes gives me a little rub on my arm or leg to show me he’s around to the way his little face falls when I mention my moving away to the way that he says things that I don’t expect and completely take my breath away (ie. Last night, upon our arrival to the date he looked at me with a very serious expression and said to me, “Hey , if another sassy american turns up on the scene whilst you’re away, don’t worry, you’re  my number one sassy american dan.” This came completely out of nowhere and totally blind-sided me. I wept and this will forever be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.). I love his beautiful giant face and how much fun we have when we’re together. (I ALSO love that he has promised me that he will ABSOLUTELY attend the Scharff/Verlaque wedding in america so as to be able to give his tiny danie away) 

Bangkok Ladyboys… I have had the desperate desire to go and see these fabulous creatures since I moved here back in 2004… Chris always very aggressively denied me the pleasure of being able to see men dressed like girls prancing around the stage… the moment I saw the first poster up this year I told myself that I was going to go and Pow was going to go with me; he happily obliged and we finally had the date of glory last night. we arrived not really knowing what to expect, sat at our designated table (number 28) and waited with wild anticipation… we giggled, took photos and offended the rest of the people at our table with our discussions about erections and the need for extra pairs of pants. the lights dimmed and we fidgeted as the announcer called out his opening words and the curtain opened to reveal the mystical world of Victorian Thai Ladyboys. From there we were pulled into two hours of hysterical cabaret, amazing costumes and wigs… oh my LORD so many wigs. I watched with glee as these mystical creatures performed their amazing dance routines with perfect step and sync. They were beautiful, their tits were perfect and everything was tucked away in all the right places for optimal confusion and self-doubt. The whole night was sprinkled with fabulous little comments from my favourite, asking which my favourite was or pointing out how amazing their nipples were. It was glittery, exciting and truly outrageous; a definite recommendation to anyone who wants a great night out.
Birdsong
Cherry Carmex
Drawing up ideas for Johnny
Being told I’m beautiful, even when I don’t feel it
When people notice the huge holes in my ears
The alarm in some people’s faces when they find out I’m getting my scalp tattooed
Work
Pauly Shore
Nick Parker
John Goncalves
Making things for people
Chevy
Planning the Scharff/Verlaque wedding (all details to come in due course, I promise)
Knowing that I’ll not be gone from England for more than a year
Things that smell like my childhood
When people ask me questions about my appearance
Buttons
Gays
Bacon fries
Kopparberg Elderflower Cider
The fact that browsing the internet on my mobile is free
REALLY cold cans of cola
Halloumi cheese
Samosas
Triple chocolate muffins
Glitter
When I find people have ACTUALLY read my blog
Finding a dress that looks relatively fabulous on me
Red peppers
Risotto
REALLY cold water
Sunny days
When I get a ride into work
Walking home whilst drunk
Goldschlaager
Paperclips
Comfortable shoes
Having a fag in the bath
Burger King french fries
Fat dogs
How easily I can talk to Muffin… I am used to avoiding most difficult topics as part of my specialist training as the wife of Mr. Butcher, so I find myself very often settling with unhappiness or angst rather than just letting it out and talking to Muffin. He hates that I do this and it causes some tiny rifts under our little cruise boat of love… this is clearly an issue I need to deal with promptly because every time, no matter HOW much of a tizzy I get into it is easy peasy to talk to him… he always approaches any of my problems with a wonderfully open mind and amazing thoughtfulness. He’s just the epitome of tact, gentleness and love and I can’t believe that I’ve been so lucky to have ensnared such a special creature into my life for the foreseeable future.  
How much Muffin can make me laugh
Bananas
Days when Pow texts me a lot
Blood orange juice
The projected plans
Talking about my move to America... whilst this originally offered me little more than OMGSTRESS, i am now in a position to be able to talk about it with a rational head that knows i won't be away from my favourite place in the world for too long. i am now getting excited about talking to people about my move and all things that surround it... what things i will store in Pow's roof, how long i will stay in cheyenne, what kind of place Muffin and i will get, etc... it's all just very exciting!
Having really long, deep conversations with Pow
Audio-typing
Telling people how beautiful they are
When Muffin posts lovely things on my wall
ALL the things in my house
Chicken Kievs
The flavour of blood
Helping people
Jon Pitore
The tiny hat i made for Curtis's baby
Trees with moss on
Coke Zero
Dane's hair
Writing on my hand
Looking forward to something
When i remember my dreams
The fact that my sister didn't freak out when i told her about my scalp tattoo
Being entrusted with big tasks
Birdsong
Crossing days off in my diary
Raffles
Emails from Dane
Vegas planning
Pow hugs
Nice days
Warmer weather
Mojitos
My hair... kinda

have a glorious week everyone! i hope it is as stupendous as you all deserve!

things that are big... nay, MASSIVE!

 On this day, at this time in twenty-four weeks I could very well be back in america… 

I will have left all my favourite English creatures and will most likely be a disgusting ball of emo mess. 

I will have said goodbye to Hannah, Jaacqy, Goncalves and Lee Lee… 

I will have had my final drink (when I say ‘drink’ I actually mean like, six litres of cider and most likely two bottles of ‘pump it up’) and fag with Janey, most likely a tearful affair that ended in the listening to and re-creation of ‘Always’ by Bon Jovi, made perfect only by our drunken writhing.

I will have had my final moviedate with Pow, most likely fueled by some meat-based food and danie’s magical cups of tea. I will have been tearful and most likely made him a bounty of fabulous little goodies and toys for him to dot around his house to remind him that danie hearts him big time. 

I will have placed my final box up in Pow’s roof for storage… 

The only thing that keeps me sane through all these thoughts is the knowledge that just slightly over a year after my departure from all things English I will be returning with Muffin… he and I will return to the world of accents and Scotch Eggs. We will return and endeavour to begin a new life with a new culture and a new world to explore… 

This decision has not come lightly, but has come with a great amount of relief from me. Granted, I was quite happy to live anywhere I could be with my Muffin, I was VERY concerned about the levels of unhappy that would accompany any move that took me away from England for too long. 

England has been the one place that I have been pining to live since I can remember… since I was perhaps as young as five I’ve been talking about wanting to move to that far-away, mystical land that is always depicted as covered in mist, sheep and bad teeth… I’ve always dreamed of walking the cobbled roads, drinking the pints and meeting the Queen. 

I think I was seventeen that I finally said to my keepers at The Home, ‘Right, that’s it! When I get outta here, I’m moving to England and there’s nothing anyone can do about it!’

From then I began looking into ways that I could get into the country that always highlighted all my dreams…  perhaps I could travel over via boat on a visitor’s visa for a few months at a time? Become a student? Get a job? I had NO idea how I was going to do it, but I was determined… 

I guess it was nothing but dumb luck that on that particular day, in that particular chatroom, both The Estranged and I signed-in and started talking about our love of ska, punk and thrash music. 

Blah, blah, blah… courting, OMGLOVE, visas, marriage, visas, etc... 

Fast-forward to today, now officially in England for five-and-a-half years, I am here and happier than I have ever been in my entire life. In that time I have hand-crafted this life that I could have only ever dreamed of, and even THOSE dreams would have fallen short of the things I have actually achieved. The people I have met, stuff I have seen and things I have done are the things that I’ve always hoped... things that would alter my life in such a way that i am left humbled and madly in love with my life and everything that makes it up. 

when i first told Muffin that i would move back to america for him i meant it... my habit to make decisions at the click of a finger made me say yes without thinking it through... contemplating what sort of repercussions would be suffered not just on my behalf, but by all my nearest and dearest. it was only after multiple moviedates with my powface and drinking sessions with janeyface that i realized that it just wasn't going to be able to happen as a long-term thing... my heart is here... here with the markets, windy roads, imperial measuring system and bar one... how could i EVER tear it away from all the things that it's spent so long falling in love with? 


the answer is simple really, it wasn't possible... for the weeks running-up to Muffin's visit i prayed to all the gods of luck and wishing that he would fall just as madly in love with England as i had all those years ago...

i could never actually have asked him to move here myself... i needed him to fall in love with it himself and want to move here without my asking. he has children and i would NEVER directly ask him to leave them... ever.

it was ten days into his visit and we were sat in the back at a Pizza Hut, moist from the persistent rain and awaiting the service of a fairly sassy gentleman called Steve. we were sat rummaging through our Selfridge's purchases and i became slightly emo, thinking of Muffin's not-too-far-away departure... it was when he saw my tiny sad face that he asked me for a piece of paper and a pen. over the next six minutes he wrote out something in secret on his side of the table... i waited and mused about what i would bake with my newly acquired dried lavender sugar. just as i was about to have a mental breakthrough about some amazing lemon and lavender cakes Muffin shoved the piece of paper under my nose... it offered me a PROJECTED PLAN that featured timescales from July 2010 (when he returns stateside) all the way to October 2012 (when, it dictates,  Dane will marry Danie)... they outlined all things in between those dates including danie moving back to america, moving out to washington and our move back to the UK... 


i read it and my eyes immediately developed a watery residue in the corners. 


the remainder of the meal was spent discussing options for him... jobs he could get, places i could store things and costs for flying back and forth to visit his little ones. 


since this conversation my heart feels about twenty stone lighter. i feel relieved and overall like this will be the best decision for both of us...england is a place that will allow us to embrace a lot of things that we would not typically be able to become familiar with Stateside... we will be able to live lives that will make both of us happy whilst ticking the box that very few people get the opportunity to fill in which says, 'live in more than one country.' 


as much as i still feel like a little kid who pouted until they got their own way (which, whilst i am aware that i DO have a tendency to do this, i did NOT do it on this occasion. i was honest and made sure that dane had the time of his life so as to allow him to make a decision all by himself.), i am being promised that he has made this decision and is happy with it, which makes danie a VERY happy girl... 


so there you have it, danie will be returning to america in september for one year and then prancing back to the UK with the love of her life for the foreseeable future. we plan to make very frequent trips back stateside and exist in a state of bliss for... well... ever. 


that's all i have for now. glee and delight. 


thanks for reading.

Tuesday - nothing more, nothing less...

meh... i don't have a lot of energy to type out a serious list today... i feel ill and am pining quite badly for the muffin. i feel very heavy today... heavy and tired.

so, without blurbs or anything, here's a list...

doritos in ranch dressing
crocheting
muffin
jeans team
Alastair
Muffin
supernumerary teeth
making people feel better
maple syrup
working on johnny
finishing a project
crochet hooks
my hair
music videos
songs with beautiful lyrics
drinking water
really milky cups of tea
having a poo
long talks with Pow
puppies
talking about the future with Muffin
being a part of something
when i don't feel like i'm the only one putting effort into something
glittery cotton
talking about the future of my womb with Muffin
Stacey
Heston Blumenthol
talking about winning the lotter with Pow
emails from Muffin's dad
interesting food
janeyface
talking about my scalp tattoo with my co-workers
my connections in the tattoo world
silicone bakeware
mittins
interesting words
the new glasses i will be getting
Curtis Baker
when people help me
watching my fish
cardigans
all the stuff on the walls in my room
mackeral
talking to my neice
getting a good sleep
studying for my test
planning my move to america
successfully stretching my ears
talking candidly with people
opening mail
plucking my eyebrows
REALLY hot baths
the fact that Pow calls me Superdan
candles that smell like cakes




that's all i've got... this has been typed in between a date with my Powface and i now need to sleep so's i don't die at workies tomorrow...


i hope everyone is well and enjoying their weeks so far!

<3

there are plenty of other boys...

in an effort to help all those boys out there who don't have any tact, let me offer a suggestion for one situation... a suggestion that will prove most helpful if you want to keep your significant others at bay...

if you are in a position where you cannot have children and your significant other is pining a little at the thought of having them... if she is just talking a little about the topic and how it makes her a little sad, do not, under ANY circumstances recite the following line (unless, of course, you are not interested in pursuing a future with said female for longer than, say, fifteen minutes):

'well there are plenty of other boys out there that you can be with...'

 honestly, when in doubt, just saying NOTHING and pretending like you didn't hear her would be better than saying that...


this sentence was actually said to me by the muffin about an hour ago...

it was said, i was in shock and then the phone cut off (not deliberately, but because we go through a switchboard. the line only remains connected for one hour and then cuts off).

a little background?

yes, please!

obviously, if you are an avid reader of my blog, you will know that muffin has been fixed... this is old news, but news that muffin has been dealing with by sweeping it under the carpet anytime the topic of children might possibly rear it's ugly head. a topic he is understandably jumpy around due to our history...

you know what though, i'm not unreasonable. i am capable of empathy and i understand it must be hard to start a relationship with someone knowing that you can't give them something that they want quite a lot... i can understand that it must offer a great feeling of inadequacy...

now, because of muffin's tidying habits when it comes to this topic, we have never REALLY discussed it... when it DOES come up and i feel persistent i will push it, not for an absolute answer, but some sign depicting that there might be some chance, maybe, one day that we could have a tiny muffin... that's all i want. i don't want a baby tomorrow, or even next year... i just want to know that the topic isn't closed and if, one day, dane and i decide that we are in a position to do it, we might get his fixing reversed and have a baby... that's all i want.

i want that or i want to know that there's no chance at all so i can make my peace with the topic and brace myself for a future of making friends with other people's babies and perhaps working part time in a nursery, potentially leaving me in a position to go completely crazy emotionally, have a breakdown and kidnap loads of babies and cross a boarder (i'm not stupid, i'm not telling you WHICH boarder!) to start a new life with all my stolen babies. 

occasionally he obliges, saying that he's stuck in the middle and has not made any definite decision either way, but i can't help but think that him saying this is his way of shutting me up... making me believe that he might, possibly change his mind one day, but it's most likely not going to happen.

the topic came up today because danie is broody... danie has been broody for nearly six years and occasionally, when a holiday comes up she gets a little sad because she doesn't have a bundle of joy to shower with special festive-themed fabulousness...

most holidays make me think of what i'd do if i was a mum... what i'd teach my child, what kinds of traditions i'd try to start up and just what an overall fabulous mum i would be. i think about all the little crocheted things i would make them and all the cupcakes i would make for each significant event in our little lives.

but now, next door to the normal pangs of broody that i am having resides the horrifying thought that i might never, EVER have a chance to do any of this.

having both of these thoughts swirling around in my head at the same time has played it's course on my emotions the last couple of days and has left me a little fraught (obviously, i am also at a loose end  because of the fact that this is my first easter since chris and i split AND it was my mum's birthday yesterday, a lethal combination of four things to have on the brain, really) ... i've been slightly down and a little snippy which has, in turn, gotten the muffin into a tizzy...

today, just a short time ago i was on the phone with him explaining my emotional state and why i have been a little curt with him and when i finished pouring my little heart out about the lack of baby and certainty of the future of my womb he handed me the fabulous line in bold above.

he said this and my heart sank... i had absolutely no idea what to say in response to this, so i said nothing. i remained silent and he babbled about something and then said the phone was about to die. i said okay and that i loved him and hung up.

i don't really know where to go from here... what to say or what to do... i feel completely lost. should what he said have upset me? should i just forget it? should i reprimand him and fight my little corner? will it do any good? the answer to all of these is most likely 'no'...

le sigh.

i shall just eat my chocolate and watch a shite comedy to quell my aching heart.

here's hoping your easter is better than mine.