Tuesday, Sept 2nd

Finally taking a break to blog. I've been pretty heavily consumed by The Sims 4 for the last day, so this is taking a lot out of me. You all need to know that.

I'm sitting and relaxing with my gorgeous hubby in my gorgeous house watching some of my favourite shows. It's been a great week and I'm finally enjoying some time away from school and lavishing in every moment of it. I'll be tidying the house, re-organizing my life, and doing LOADS of crafting (most of the people I love will be getting beautiful handmade items from our home for the holidays this year. And, AND!! I'LL BE MAKING WREATHES BECAUSE I FINALLY HAVE A DOOR TO PUT THEM ON!)

Anyways, I'll get on with my list, as I have a lot more Sims to play and also Ink Master is on.


When dramatic interest is drawn by children's songs featuring gentle approaches to death... I was watching Desperate Housewives the other day and Susan was in a car with David Dash (for those of you not familiar, he was driving her to the death he felt she deserved for many reason) and she began singing the old woman and the fly song to calm her son... The lyrics "perhaps she'll die" hit right at the moment of impact and it was VERY exciting. Also, for something a little more modern, in World War Z, when the family is in the middle of the city and they watch a man get bit, die, and then come back to life, the Sesame Street bit (counting trains) counts the amount of time it takes for the zombie to re-animate. It's incredible and gives a creepy, fun vibe to scary scenes.
Chemical peels... I am literally completely obsessed with these right now. I've begun a series of them and my skin has never looked better. I want to get them constantly right now. I'm so fascinated by the reactions the different peels have on the skin and love learning about combinations and effects long term.
croissant sandwiches
passion tea from Starbucks
mustard
waxing... and I'm pretty badass at it. Deal with it.
Derek... This show is such a gorgeously painful piece of art. Muffin and I have been watching it for the last week or so and every single episode has made us weep. It's a beautiful, sad, hilarious, and wonderful show. It makes me miss England so much and makes my heart swell for reasons that a lot of other shows don't. They approach ugly topics that a lot of other shows refuse to and I love that.
Guardians of the Galaxy... WATCH IT RIGHT NOW!
reading
true crime books
Esthetic Sciences
taco burgers
korean bbq jerky
F.R.I.E.N.D.S... all the episodes. All the time.
Ikea
Maleficent
organizing my life
when i cut something with a knife that cut garlic previously...There is a residual flavour that I just adore. Last night I had some ice water with lemon that was clearly cut with a knife that had recently also cut some garlic. It was my favourite super-lemon water, but with the tiniest hint of garlic and I couldn't get enough of it.
Funny one-liners from news anchors... today, for instance, an anchor was covering schoolkids and their return to their prospective institutions. He was talking about the ramping-up of police around schools because people like to drive like maniacs apparently, when school begins. he finished the feed by saying "While the kids are learning their abc's, driver's better mind their p's and q's."
Sims 4
Sephora... Good LORD I am obsessed with this place! I get a sweet discount right now and I'm taking full advantage of it. My makeup has been ramped up and I'm so pleased.
My makeup skills... On that note, people should know that I am freaking awesome at applying makeup. Several of the people in my class asked me constantly to apply their makeup and my confidence is riding high. Maybe I'll upload some photos.

Alright. I'm done for the evening. Time to snuggle my puppy and hubby. Have a wonderful night all, I know I will.

May 2014

YAY! A new month! I am so excited for summer than I can hardly stand it!

The cards of my life are falling into clear and beautiful places and I'm so pleased from day-to-day that I stop several times a day just to look up and thank whatever stars finally aligned to make things so great.

I'm going to compile a list of things that made the last month so prolific and great for me, so have a gander!


Things i love most RIGHT NOW:

• Documentaries... Again, I have caught the documentary bug and I've been taking in TONS over the last couple of weeks. Each night when I come home I pop one on. In fact, during my homework today I've zipped through about seven documentaries. It's been really fun and informative. I just love watching them and being back in class has really boosted that excitement again. My teacher LOVES documentaries and has had us watching a lot through the quarter, so I've just been taking that home with me at night and consuming as many as possible.
• FANS... It's been hotter than blazes here the last week or two and I've fallen in love with my fan again. The poor little guy gets dragged from room to room in the house throughout the day to help keep us nice and cool.
• Skyping with Molly... Muffin called me in to Skype with her today and it was SO nice. She's just such a grown-up little lady right now and getting to catch up with her was really nice. Muffin has been loving finally being able to see his little girl quite a lot too. She loves Skyping with him and he couldn't be happier. Seeing that tiny little face light up as she shows us the landmarks of her daily life is so nice. We can't WAIT to see her!
• Numbers falling... I'm ever so slowly losing weight. That number on the scale is falling each day and I couldn't be more pleased!

Things that are consuming my life right now:

• Diseases and Disorders of the skin... I'm pretty much completely obsessed with them. I go to bed each night thinking about them and reading about the ones that I can't piece together by myself. Learning about cell differentiation and the life processes of certain diseases and disorders has really inspired me to discover as much as I possibly can about them. I want to know why certain skin is spared, or why, in a pair of twins, one will have psoriasis and the other won't. It's all such an enigma and I'm in love with it. 
•  Summertime activity planning... So Molly broke her arm, so we've had to alter the activities that we had been planning just a little bit. She'll get her cast off around the middle of her visit, so we'll be able to do some of the fun activities that we had planned, but this has opened up our eyes to a whole heap of NEW activities that are friendly to a broken limb. We have a list as long as that little broken arm of things that we'll be able to do, so we're excited!
• Cosmetic Chemistry... Given my schooling and where I work, it is WILDLY important for me to learn as much as possible about ingredients used in cosmetic products, and that has filled my little life up at the moment. When I'm not looking up the histology of Acne Fulminans or Herpes Zoster, I am reading in-depth about the ingredients in every single thing I possibly can. I want to know why each and every ingredient is in everything I use now and why. I want to know what purpose things serve and why they are on my skin. I literally have my cosmetic dictionary with me everywhere I go and refer to in constantly. It's a lot of fun.

Things I want to tell June Danie:

• "Kindness. Remember kindness and patience."
• "TAKE MORE BATHS! YOU DESERVE TO!"

 last but not least... here's a quote. PHEW! This hit me hard when I read it the other day! It's such a true statement, particularly with all the times I find myself taken aback by people being turds. I've lived with this mantra for years now and this popped up just as I needed it. It hits home. 

it's official

So it’s official… as of 0742 Friday morning I have got a ticket back to america.

I officially now have an email in my inbox worth £512.
I find it baffling that I can spend such a vast amount of money and have so very little to show for it. Like, if I had something really substantial like a pony or a dolphin as a result of that transaction, I would feel much more satisfied, but overall, it is a massive anti-climax… I had built-up the tension about booking a ticket, worried myself sleepless most nights thinking about leaving, desperately hoping that the purchase of this ticket would magically make all the little twinges go and quell every little concern I had.
No.
Now I still find myself concerned and still have twinges, but am half-a-grand poorer.
I left workies on Thursday afternoon after having bestowed upon my manager and co-workers the priceless information that I would be purchasing a ticket the following morning and would therefore be handing in my official notice to work upon my return. They all nodded and I nodded in response, blissfully unaware of the fact that not one of them believed that I would actually be purchasing a ticket the following morning…
Thursday night saw me arrive home from workies to an empty house. Due to the heat I immediately stripped-off, drew a megahot bath and relaxed. It was a fabulous bath (one which featured my second-favourite thing about getting a tattoo – the rubbing-off of all the dead skin…. Mmmmmyay!), and then I proceeded to tidy the house and lie on the sofa in a writhey manner whilst watching the news and texting Nick.
The plan for the night had been for me to sit at Bar One drinking my face off for the entirety of the night to quell my rage towards my estranged husband (oh em GEE that will be another blog altogether). I bounced on the sofa as I sent Nick an excited text asking if he still wanted a visitor to which he replied that he was working and if I wanted to come round I could, but that he wasn’t much company. I asked why. His response took ages and in that time I writhed in a sleepy manner with the news telling me about racist attacks, accidental baby deaths and the football. Just at the end of the news Nick replied saying his granddad had died in the morning. I immediately said I would be there as soon as I ate. I threw together a very sorry excuse for a tuna sandwich and tossed on some shoes and was at the pub within twenty minutes.
The remainder of the night circulated around lots of hugs and laughing until we cried as we watched videos of disabled animals, fat children and singing dogs. All this took place with Buddy nestled on my lap, his muzzle against my bosoms and my hand scratching his belly. It is nights like that, nights where I can just sit for hours with Nick next to me, Buddy on my lap and Chris Tree bumbling by every so often giving me faux-dirty looks, that I love purely because it allows me to remember why my life is so special. Why I have every reason in the entire world to feel so pleased for what I have.
I left the pub with just enough time to get home and have a really nice couple of hours with Pow. We talked about Johnny and me moving away and his newly-shaved facial hair before retiring to the sofa to watch a bit of Juno and take some photos of our faces squished together. We practiced our American accents and punched one another until Amy arrived and we all went to sleep.
That night, laid in bed, I almost wept from the realization of how beautiful my life is. I curled up on my right side, snuggled my stuffed penguin tight and felt like my heart was going to swell and burst out of my chest. I have everything I could ever need in life… absolutely everything, and I would be silly to ever think that I needed anything more.
Friday morning I woke up an hour before my alarm was due to go off. I felt tense and sat on my bed for five minutes, bracing myself for the task which had been laid before me.
I meandered down the hall, holding my dog-tags so they did not make so much noise that they woke the sleeping lovers.
I sneaked down the stairs and across the terracotta flooring before flicking the computer on and sitting on the piano bench-cum-computer chair and took a deep breath. Muffin was online, so we talked as I booked my train to London for that afternoon. Train booked, Facebook checked and emails responded to I had no other way to distract myself; I had to book my ticket. I did the search and found my ticket cheaper than it had been three days before. I booked it and felt not nearly as relieved as Muffin seemed to. He was ecstatic.
Again though, let me stress to you the amount of disappointment there is when all I have to show for having spent half-a-grand is an email, and not even a very good one at that. All it bloody said was that I had purchased a ticket… there was no information about luggage allowance, no anti-terrorist propaganda, just the itinerary and a generic disclaimer about what to do if I had received that email in error.
Granted, as a result of that half-a-grand, I will be able to step on a plane in fifty-eight days and that plane will take me to Paris and then, after an hour-and-a-half I will get on ANOTHER plane that will take me straight to Muffin’s arms. Still though, it’d be nice if I had a little more to show for the destruction of my bank account than a poxy little email.
Post-ticket, Muffin had to go work and I had to get ready for my morning-time plans. The plans had been set in place the previous night with a bottle of cider in my hand and a white wine spritzer in Nick’s (no, he isn’t THAT gay, he’s just trying to watch his weight, which, in hindsight, me saying that doesn’t really help with trying to dull down his gayness… “Oh, I’ll have a white wine spritzer, I’m watching my figure!”). Nick had told me, in between videos of narcoleptic dogs and cats with no sense of balance, about his escapades in town earlier in the day and about the fact that he had seen a new shop in the Westfield Centre called “Appy Feet” which Nick described to me as a shop with lots fo tanks where you could pay to have fish suck on your feet. The instant he told me about this I froze…
Right, firstly, who the crap would hear that you could go to a shop and pay a measly ten pounds to get tiny fish to suckle on your feet for fifteen minutes and turn THAT down?!
Secondly, guess which two people had a free couple of hours in the morning the VERY next day?!
I happily embarked on the journey to the pub to pick Nick up and rolled around on the floor with Buddy upon arriving until Lee and Nick were both ready. We left the pub en masse and arrived at the shopping centre for epic foot-sucking action.
So, for anyone who’s never had it done, I’d say do it, because it is totally a fun and weird experience. You dangle your feet, ankle-deep in a big bowl of filtered water with about eighty fish in. they immediately come to your feet and rasp at them until you pull them out. It was a fun little experience and post-getting sucked Nick and I pranced to some shops where he helped me pick out some undergarments and a shirt and then we went to the only coffee shop we deemed acceptable for a fabulous ice cream milk shake and some cupcakes (which I consumed purely for research purposes)
We ate and drank and then felt ill. We bumbled around town for a short while before making our way back to the pub to have a sausage roll and a cuddle with the dog. Lee and I talked about people on benefits and the likelihood of me getting a job in america until Nick came back inside from making a phone call in the garden (in case you were wondering, the call was made to the police an effort to remove the human scum who had congregated across the road from the pub to do a little daytime street-drinking. They were a disgusting, motley crew of pykies with a herd of dogs ready to eat you alive if you decided to challenge them). Nick then drove me back home so I could finish packing in a wild frenzy and drove me to the train station just in time for me to print out my tickets and hop on the 1425 straight to Londontown.
An hour-and-a-half later I was stepping off the train and hurdling as quickly as possible to the waiting arms of my janeyface. We hugged for ages and made our way out of the horror that is London St Pancras International Train Station into the harsh sunlight of the Big Smoke. We immediately decided to go to the nearest pub and began chainsmoking, drinking cider, people-watching and talking about various fabulous topics.
The rest of the afternoon was spent walking around in the bright, beautiful sunlight, stopping only to open another bottle of cider or to buy chinese buns and sushi. The afternoon was perfectly blissful and the bulk of our conversations for the afternoon involved how much we love spending time together and how we are one-another’s bffs.
I adore spending time with janey for many reasons, primarily though, I enjoy it because it is a time when I can be completely me without question. I can smoke or not smoke, drink or not drink, curse or not curse, say racist things or not and I will always get as good as I receive. She is an amazing person who, as soon as i first come within an arm’s length of her, makes me feel completely giddy with youthful excitement. It’s as though I immediately turn into a teenager again and we can just be two lewd, crude dudes with no worries at all in the world. I am never scared or questionable about anything when I am with janey. I can say or do anything around her and she won’t bat an eyelash (particularly because those BLOODY eyelashes cost a tenner EACH! **please see photo to your immediate left for explanation**)
She and I seem to think the same thoughts, do the same things and generally be the same person, which I love. We spent the bulk of the weekend talking about various topics surrounding my doubts and concerns with moving to america… things I imagine I will put into a blog when and/or if I find the time.
So… back to the original point, I’ve got a ticket back to America.
I pranced into work yesterday morning with glee all over my face, as if perhaps I had just won a little prize… or a very large prize (but knowing me, a little one would suffice, as I get covered in glee for even the tiniest of things). I beamed as my co-worker’s jaws dropped. It came to light as I was helping with the morning banking that many of the colleagues did not think I was actually going to go. They thought I was going to change my mind at the last minute; that I was going to move house and stay there because I loved it too much. Nobody believed I was going to go…
I’ve since handed in my resignation and I officially finish work at half past four on Monday 23^rd August.
And there we are. I officially leave my favourite place in the entire world in fifty-eight days.
At half past three on the morning of August 26^th I will be drunkenly bundling all m y favourite people into a hired van after a night of celebrating the birth of my Pow and my last night in the country. We will nearly all be in fancy-dress and we will (hopefully) make it to the airport for four in the morning. it will be an emotional affair that will most likely break my heart harder than it was broken when I left america. The people I have bonded with over the last six years have grown to be so special to me and the thought of living without them bloody kills me.
Granted, it is only for thirteen months…  three-hundred and ninety-six days.
Wish me luck.

9: love my life: for the work i do...

and but oh do I do a lot of work for others! It seems as though I pretty much do nothing but things for other people. 

I’m not complaining here though…  I love the work I do… I love every single little tiny thing I create and every single little smile I generate on another person’s face as a result. 

The obvious things I do are my cupcakes. My cupcakes always make me the happiest because they are something I tend to offer exclusively to other people. When I bake, I tend to bake just for other people and don’t often eat any of the cakes myself.

I bake, lovingly mixing all the ingredients whilst singing along to whatever words I have placed on my megamix for that specific day. 

I decorate, carefully piping, glittering and placing each and every decoration with love and attention.
I watch. 

This is my favourite bit… watching people eat my baked goods. There is very little I love more in the world than to sit smugly as I see all the muscles of the recipient’s face turn into putty and fall in love with me, my cakes and all things sweet. I love that people come and hug me after I’ve baked, I love that I am known, seemingly around the world, as ‘The Cupcake Lady’  or ‘Danie Cupcake.’ I love, love, LOVE my baked goods. 

Alongside my cupcakes are the things I make. The woollen toys, hats, scarves and any other miscellany you can conjure. These things come fewer and further in between but generate the most amount of glee… most of my creations lately have been for Pow, but no mind, as his happy face is one of my favourites. When I present him with a new bizarre toy or idea I see his eyes go bright and the corners of his mouth immediately turn up into a smile not dissimilar to that of a toddler on Christmas. 

Alongside all the things I do (my actual job, sewing, tidying, cooking, tanning pigskin, etc) I feel that even the most simple things, that wouldn’t ordinarily be considered ‘work’ to people, are often taken for granted as gifts to other people. 

A mere smile or squeeze of the hand can be life-altering for some people, depending on the day. I am a firm believer that every single little thing that one does alters the world, much like the old adage about if a bird flaps it’s wing in America then  someone will feel a breeze in Japan or something (I don’t know quite how it goes), but everything everyone does is crucial to someone, somewhere. 

So for now, I will continue creating, smiling, baking, writing and taking photos, as I believe these things are the biggest and most special gifts that I give to people…. 

at least once a day...

At least once a day he asks me that question… 

“How are you settling in?”


Every single time I chuckle to myself and tell him not to be silly and that I settled in six years ago… the only difference now is rather than a fiver a day on taxi fair back to mine, I’m only dropping 50 calories as I mince up the stairs and flop into my bed.

I have officially been moved out of number 7 for three days, although I’ve not slept there in six.


The last two visits to the house were the worst, beginning Saturday. Saturday saw me packing all the bits of my tiny life into a van piloted by Mr Tree. All the stuff that had previously adorned the walls and shelves of my bedroom, lounge and dining room were stowed away within their own cardboard prisons, unsure of whether they would be allowed to escape for the next year or not. I reluctantly packed away all the tiny bits and pieces of my life that I had so carefully dotted around my house so as to allow for ample smiles, memory induction and general comfort-clutter.

That Saturday, everything was gone. All that remained in the house were the cast-offs that I was unable to fit into any boxes.

Well, I COULD have fit them, had I not been retarded. I had SO much notice for the move but kept putting it off because it was just far too painful to face. I love that house so much and I thought that perhaps, if I just left it until the last moment something otherworldly would happen and either everything would suddenly and magically be packed for me, or I would be allowed to stay, rent-free for my last ten weeks.


Because of this fabulous lack of preparation, I left the house that day in a state that perhaps resembled some sort of memory-hurricane aftermath… I closed the door that Saturday morning and immediately had to lean on the brick wall that made up the corner of my bay window…. I had to lean, otherwise I would have crumpled into a heap on the street and Tree would have had to have carried me into the van and then carried me into the new house. I leaned and let out a tiny whimper before climbing into Tree’s van and driving off to the new house.

Photos, toys, drawings and ticket stubs, they were what scattered the floor of every room in the house… they were the painful things that I had to approach on Tuesday with ruthless force. Pow and I arrived at the house for noon armed with bin liners, a hoover and cleaning products. I told him that I just wanted everything to go into the bin, no exceptions, and charged upstairs to begin bagging up all the remnants that were strewn about my old bedroom. I knelt and the first thing I found was a stuffed-monkey… a monkey Christopher and I had named ‘Burt Reynolds’ and hung proudly on every door or stairwell we could on a rotating basis. Christopher had won Burt for me at Frontier Days the summer of 2004 during his visit. I cuddled Burt to my chest, smelled him and wept… Pow came in from the spare room with a silly hat on and asked if I was okay. I gave him a thumb’s-up and shoved Burt into a bin bag… suffocated him in his plastic tomb with all the other memories that he would have to live with for eternity.


Every single little thing I passed my fingers across held its own special memory that I replayed in my mind and that broke my heart… the stars hung on the wardrobe, the toucan gravy boat and the bottle of Advocaat. Every single one of those things, upon picking them up, whisked my memory bank to the middle of the ballroom in my mind and performed a heart-wrenching and emotional rendition of some sad production or dance routine that left me feeling weary, weepy and some other suitably sad ‘w’ word that I can’t even think of at the moment. 

Pow had to leave early, so I forced him to take one final photo at number 7... the photo that is effectively one of my favourite photos ever...

At the end of the day I left number 7 with my giant lily in my arms and Nick in front of me.


I left the keys on the table along with a letter I wrote to my landlord.

I left the house I had fallen so, SO madly in love with three years ago for the last time.


I maintained my composure without crying purely because Nick is precious and hysterical and I couldn’t help but laugh at the visage of myself holding my giant lily plant, freshly dug out of the garden and placed in a bin liner (the only thing big enough to hold the plant’s giant roots) as though I were some off-beat beauty-pageant queen with the biggest bouquet in the history of the world. I pranced around in the hallway before making my way into the fresh evening sunlight and closing the door for the final time.


Nick dropped me off at the new house, which was thankfully devoid of housemate, we had a cup of tea and he left me to it. I immediately didn’t know what to do… I felt a little lost. I stood in the kitchen that I was so familiar with and stared at the mess the combination of my life and Pow’s had created. I set on to tidying it, did all the washing-up, completely re-organized the kitchen cupboards and transplanted my lily before washing my hands and settling down on the wheelchair in the garden with a cup of tea, my book and chevy for my first relaxed sit-down at my new, temporary residence.


The last three days have been blissful. The house has now been perfectly tailored to suit both of our needs and living with him is one of the best things that I could have imagined.


I spent the two weeks prior to the move fretting over the fact that me moving in with him was either going to be the make or break of our friendship… sure that he was going to HATE living with me and would kick me out within a week.


We exist in a wonderful way that has been described by people as ‘combining two of the exact same people in one house.’ We have restful evenings watching films and creating, nice walks to the shop and just the right amount of time away from one another to make our random antics throughout the house all the more perfect.

My moving-in seems to have been the best thing for both of us. I get to spend as much time as I want with my squishy-face and he gets to have his PA living with him and helping him sort his life out for ten weeks. He seems happier and I am so, so much happier.

He is such a safe place for me…  someone that I can really just sit and be completely relaxed and myself with. I love his house, him and my life at the moment. I couldn’t possibly be happier, even if I tried. 

 my bedroom

OMGTUESDAYOMG!

The last week I have been tired…  I’ve been busy and tired. Did I even do a list last Tuesday? I did, didn’t i? It was boring and not full of much. just a basic list… well, this week I NEED to focus on the lovely, so I will be doing a fabulous list and it will blow minds, end wars and perhaps, MAYBE be the reason my life is made into a made-for-TV-movie (purely because it is OBVIOUS that some amazing, budding film director will see this blog, see the list I am about to do, become SO enthralled by my life and the way I live it that he will have to contact me and when he meets me he will fall desperately in love with me and in a bid to spend as much time with me as possible and potentially make me fall in love with him, he will follow me around for a year and document my life, making it into a film and making me an international star… I’m just saying… it COULD happen)
My week, despite me being slightly down has made my life worth living… I’ve had a stupendous amount of magical little things happen that have made the days perfect. The list of these things can be seen… NOW!

Nick Parker… number one this week for SO many reasons, the most important being that I think I actually fell in love with him in the wee hours of Sunday morning. I’m sure my heart actually skipped a beat whilst busting out some moves to some random R’n’B song at a club (no, I do NOT know the lyrics and NO I am NOT a closet R’n’B princess, shut up) . The smoke machine’s emissions had cleared just enough for me to be able to breathe a normal amount and the harsh, hot pink neon lights shone on his beautiful dancing face in the perfect way for me to fall madly in love with being there at that specific moment in that specific place with him. 

The evening had started with some reluctant drinks at Nick’s pub (see: Bar One, the best pub in the world)… I was tired, cranky and insecure about the fact that I was debuting a dress that had never seen the light of day (despite the fact that it’s been living in my house amongst all my OTHER clothes for nearly seven months), but that I HAD to test out to see if it would be acceptable to wear to a gig on Friday (the general consensus for the dress was excellent, btw. My bosoms were heaving and people were drooling, it was made of win… I’ll most likely NOT wear it out again though) after a few glasses of Sailor Jerry I was happy to get up and belt out a rendition of “That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania (which has since left me with the name amongst the Bar One crew of Shania Twat… fanks guise!).
The whole night was peppered with me harassing Nick, Amy and Franny about whether or not they’d be prancing along to a club around the corner called Curzon’s. I was aware that they regularly went and I had never BEEN ‘clubbing’ as it were, so I was desperate and drunk enough to be excited about going to what I had pictured in my head as a ritzy gay-filled club for some dancing, cocktails and general closeness with some of what I could only imagine would be derby’s most BEAUTIFUL gays (oh how WRONG I was).
Until the clock struck three I bounced around in general excitement, squeeing regularly at Nick about how pumped I was. The squees were sprinkled around a ‘hair-off’ between Nick and myself which saw us getting our hair out (I just realized this sounds odd, we were both wearing hats) and making it as big as possible. The norm for us when I am visiting his humble establishment is for us to fondle our glasses in a sassy way together and muse about what outrageous outfit he plans to wear when Muffin and I marry in Vegas (the current and most consistent contender being a flesh-coloured leotard. EDIT: after a talk with Nick just now, the outfit has been singled down to a hat resembling a cow’s head and a powder-blue suit. He says this is finite and THE outfit… we’ll see).
When we were finally released to the streets and had pranced around the corner to the club Nick clutched me and made it clear he was going to be my keeper for the duration of our stay there. he riddled me with rum and coke and we danced… oh how we danced. After about ten minutes of dancing in our little circle consisting of, in order, Franny, Ferret, Amy, Nick and myself, I found my mind wondering into a place that allowed me to take everything in with perfect clarity… the switch that flicked this wondering was watching Nick dancing. He started busting a particularly hysterical move and I had to actually stop dancing so as to help myself memorize that moment and to remember that this life that I have, it is perfect and that perfection is all because of people like Nick Parker. I watched him dance for thirty-six seconds (yes, I love numbers and I counted) and fell in love with him.  I fell in love with the way he carries himself, the way he dances, his face, his arms, his hat, the way he talks and the way we can have a laugh at everything in the world… he is a magically beautiful creature and I am so, so thankful that I have had the opportunity to have bonded with him as much as I have over the last couple of months. I am madly in love with every single second that I get to spend being sassy and crude with him and I hate the fact that he and I did not start this bonding process sooner… he is a wonderful person and I can’t WAIT for all my favourite american creatures to meet him and fall just as madly in love with him as I have. 

Pow… oh yes, the big squishy-face. I have a particularly large crush on him at the moment due to the fact that I will get a SUPER concentrated amount of time with him in the nine weeks prior to my leaving. This is due to the fact that since RetardStacey moved out I trust no one. I’ve met with five people about them moving in with me and I just don’t trust them… some of them with just cause, one of them because they just looked and talked FAR too much like RetardStacey for me to be comfortable living with her. Wait, let me go back… Pow has been the one person to make me cry more than anyone else has this last week (which Nick says isn’t hard and that the phrase “don’t cry over spilled milk” was most likely written about and for me). I cried out of anger for him being so retarded and messing up some very important dates (which makes me love him more than anything else because, despite the initial anger-to-tears, he teaches me about patience and I need that from time-to-time… NOBODY tries my patience like Alastair Powers does… not a single person in the world), I cried out of love for two reasons… the first being a text that he sent me… I had sent him (and all the other most important people in my life) a text asking what the first thing that came to mind was when he thought of me, his response was received JUST as I was snuggling in for a night’s slumber… it caught me JUST in the throes of my valium sleepytime… my mobile was on my pillow next to my left ear and the ping and vibration pulled me out of the Christmastime party I was having with Augusten Burroughs. I glanced at my mobile, smiled at the name of the sender, curled up into a little ball facing left and read the following: “Your smile your glasses your eyes your bravery your gun ho Fuck this SHIT attitude your endless creativity and your love and support.” I wept. I wept first because I did not expect a response from him and I wept second because of the small intimacies he noted. To know that someone associates me with with my eyes and smile… it makes my heart hurt. The second happy weep a’la Pow was yesterday… we were still covered in the scent of chlorine from the pool and burdened with bags of food (burgers, chips, Victoria sponge, chocolate ganache pudding, bagels and coke zero). He pranced in excitedly and before we could even set the bags down he asked which of the presents I wanted first (presents which came from his recent trip to Blackpool)… I opened the first, which is a secret, only to be revealed once Johnny is finally unveiled; the second was handed to me with the words, “because I knew you were going to be moving in.” I then unwrapped a mug with the Scorpio symbol on it. (This is special for me and Pow because of a video that he and I made several months back. He has the worst memory in the universe and in the video he asked me what my star sign was twice in two seconds… now, when he does or says something silly or forgetful I always ask him what my sign is or he will pip me to the post by belting out “SCORPIO!”). Last night was spent curled-up on his sofa making videos and watching ‘The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus’ with small conversations about how and when I would start moving things in spun in throughout. We talked about foods we both like and how tidy the kitchen would be and I was generally in love with life. Nothing makes me happier than to know that I will get to spend my last several weeks in England with my favourite squishy-face in the world.
Painting my nails
Having more important work to do at my job
Wasabi 
OMGJANEYVISIT! This visit! OMGTHISVISIT! It will be starting from 14:25 Friday afternoon and last until 10:30 Monday morning. It will be full of LOTS of drinking, lots of baking and so much fun. It will be the busiest, but possibly the best and most epic JANEYDANIEFUNTIME in the history of the world. Friday I will pick her up and we will go pick up the things I have on reserve at the butcher’s in the market. We’ll prance back to mine and bake our faces off for a couple of hours and then bumble down to Bar One where we will spend the evening looking fabulous, eating cakes, watching amazing music, telling racist jokes to Nick and gawking at ANNA (even PERHAPS convincing Nick to take us to Curzons so’s Janey can have the experience of her life). Saturday we will rouse from our drunken sleeps in no fit state to do anything but watch stand-up comedy and horror movies. Once I feel up to it Saturday night I will tattoo myself under Janey’s watchful eye, make an attempt at cooking a cow’s heart and drink more. Sunday will see Pow arrive (hopefully) bright and early for a serious photo session for Johnny and general funtimes. The weekend will mostly just be amazing and made of win and everyone should be jealous. I can see us getting barred from places, sicking up (that’ll mostly be Janey) and offending many. It’ll be fun.
Reading old letters 
Good dreams
Carbonated water
Free tattoos
Opening post
Planning playdates
Orange juice WITH pulp
Hyperbole and a Half
When everyone else is sunburnt and i'm not
Tom Waits
Heath Ledger
Magnetic Fields 
the hippodrome (yes, that's me being tiny inside that massive, destroyed theatre)
The lists of things that come to mind when people first think of me... this is for a secret project, one that will be revealed in due course. the list is as follows.. beers around a fire, my voice, my accent, ear piercings, guinea pigs, an oversized plastic peanut with a tiny chirping bird inside, crochet, chinese buns, cupcakes, sushi, tattoos, wool, small lap dogs, burgers, benches, colour, light, denzel washington, taxidermy, general tat, bright-coloured clothing, animal skins, horrible packaged american foodstuffs, fags, ducks, hair, stars, cake, pink, perverted 'my little ponies,' laughing, vaginas, paisley-print, breakfast foods, makeup, hairdye, glasses, houndstooth, s'mores cereal, red straws, carnival rides, sandals, jeans, marker pens... it was a glorious list.


 

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. 

2: Love my life - for what i am yet to receive

love your life for what you are yet to receive

there are countless things i am yet to receive, things that i am really not even able to fathom. clearly, every day i receive new things... memories, people, items, cuddles, etc. each of these things are what keeps me going.

it is for these small, wonderful that i exist.

i am aware that over the next year, particularly, i will be in receipt of a great deal of fantastical things... the things that i can think i would be so lucky to get are as follows:

• new people and friends
• going-away gifts when i move
• my citizenship
• tickets to america
• a home to stay in with my sister upon my arrival back to america
• perhaps at LEAST seven more gifts from the muffin
• christmas cards
• SO many cuddles for SO many creatures
• letters from my grandma
• at least ten more paycheques from workies
• a multitude of memories
• tattoos from janeyface
• the opportunity to see the muffin for the (third) first time
• a painting that pow pow has done for me
• my Kenwood Kmixer
• the beginning of a new and outrageously beautiful chapter in the book of danie and dane
• my divorce

i think that's it for now... those are things i can think of that i KNOW will be coming into my life in the future that will make every single day worth plodding on for, because i know they will be coming.

it is difficult, because i know that every single day offers me something new, something that will inspire me to love my life even more than i did before. i just need to make sure i am humble enough to be able to notice them and not take them for granted.

Interview with myself...

i stumbled across a fabulous website the other day that is full of really inspirational lists and cannot help but think that given where i am today, i should assess my life and perhaps evaluate why i am as happy as i am... please see below:

1. What Do You Do For A Living?
my official job title is 'Casenotes Investigation Lead and Team Administrator.' that essentially breaks down like this... i work in the records department at the local psychiatric hospital (mental asylum) and am paid to read records most of the day. when i am not investigation people's mental health problems, i can be found writing policies and procedures, performing stock-checks of our CPA (Care Plan Approach) documents, filling out countless incident forms and investigating the loss of files.

outside of work i prance. i prance and i create. i live to create and make people smile.

2. Who Do You Love?
i think this might be the hardest question ever... i love SO many people. so many people for so many reasons. i could never, ever find the time or amount of pages to list everyone, but i shall try. please see a collection of people that i love named below:

alastair powers, jane hallam, danish muffin, john goncalves, vic potterton, antoinette burchill, eleanor field, lee howes, jaacq hugo, stephanie smith, ashley arneson, karl beattie, paul marshall, james pritchard, bean, luke winn, jen galvan, sarah mabry, jessi whitley, theo mcnaboe, claire gorman, mark urban, jerry hope, george harris, hannah zair, dave lewis, lester norton, tracey bee, mark dixon, ladonna schrock, heyward schrock, carmen garrett, paige garrett, even foster, gloria oldfield, vada bartel, clinton bartel, arlene stevens, sharon stevenson, george stevens, kyle stevens, christy stevens, melissa brobby, thuy, nick parker, tony barnes, shelby coulter, challis orme, maral deghati, louis verlaque, jeremy wert, eric beeman, michael bachelder, john butcher, dawn tonks, kevin shay, chris poch, kasey orr, charlie romijn, chris tree, tracey meek, julie west, kelly holmes, claire stewart, james wagner, alex bowen, yvonne platts, angela bell goode, thomas thompson, paul waggener, JR garrett, deej dharwal,

3. Do You Have Enough Money?
well, i make enough to get by happily. with the amount of money that i make, i can easily pay my bills and have enough left over to live a life that is comfortable and slightly extravagant. i guess i WILL need more in the coming months in order for me to be able to buy my citizenship and get myself back to america, but at the moment, i am content.

4. Are You Healthy?
i think i could be healthier, but i am fairly content with my levels of health. my mental health is pretty tip-top and i eat okay and i exercise a good amount. i guess i could exercise more, if i REALLY wanted to be like, super-healthy, but i am really quite content with my health levels at the moment.

5. Do You Think You Are a Good Person?
i honestly do. i spent an extended period in a treatment facility and whilst there, i learned a massive amount about patience, empathy and love. i am someone who really KNOWS that neither i nor anyone else can ALWAYS be perfect and happy and is okay with that. i accept people for who they are and love them no matter what.  i am overall a very forgiving and helpful person who gives as good as she receives. i am inherently happy and exist in my life from one delightful person/thing/feeling to the next and i circulate love and glee wherever i can and really try to help people who i feel need it. in a nutshell, yes, i think i am fairly fabulous.

6. How Old Are You?
officially, i am twenty-five years, nineteen days and about seven hours old.

mentally, i feel so much older. i feel that because of my upbringing, i was forced to grow up much quicker than most people; that, alongside all of the other things i have done in my life, would perhaps force someone to perceive me as maybe... uhhh... thirty? i get 'thirty' a lot. i have experienced a lot of things in my life, and while i am by no means claiming i have had it tougher, i know that that has helped me develop perhaps more than most people my age. i am happy with this and will continue to live and learn and age mentally and physically.

7. Who’s Your Best Friend?
i have a shocking amount of best friends... i will have to give each of them a mention because it wouldn't be fair for me not to. i need to make sure they all knew how much they mean to me...

the muffin... he is just numero uno... numero uno because he has my heart and cares for it so gently. i met him when i was fifteen outside of the mcdonald's on east lincolnway and fell in love with him instantly. since then he has always been a constant, praying thought on my mind. he is such a gentle, wonderful, supportive creature who i can't help but love no matter what he does. he and i are the same person and i love that i have been allowed by the universe to find him. many people aren't given that opportunity, and i was.

 powers... i know i go on about him a lot, but, like the muffin, he is someone that i love no matter what he does. i met him on november 19th 2004 and immediately knew that he would be someone who would be massive in my life. i knew from the first syllable out of his mouth that he was someone i would be able to trust and love limitless amounts and he has not disappointed. our friendship has been the one constant since the day after i moved to england. he has always been there for me and is someone i know i will have countless more moviedates and adventures with. i love him big time, nay, massive time.

janey... there are just not enough words in the english or thai language to be able to explain how much i heart this female. my friendship with her is like no other. i remember the first time i met her in person... she was just... she is just so beautiful. i feel so fortunate that i have found her. that i have been given the chance to meet her and participate in so many amazing adventures with her. she has been a fucking rock for me through a lot of stuff and is someone that i will be devastated to leave when i do finally move. i think the fucking world of her. she has been one of the main factors that has made me who i am today and for that i am eternally fucking greatful. (apparantly, she also makes me curse a lot?)

ashley... my ashley. where does one begin? i met her in speech class a year before i properly met her. we spoke in passing for about three weeks before i was taken out of public school. the next year i would see her again and learn what a special creature she is. i still have the very first note she wrote to me from our very first away speech meet where we INSISTED that we be allowed to 'sleep together.' we were a force to be reckoned with and were almost completely inseparable for the rest of that school year and the following summer. i am sure we gave mr. starks at LEAST five strokes and offended more than twenty-dozen people. from our late-night village inn dates (with ranch dressing ON THE SIDE!!) to our countless thrift adventures (where we were justifiably dubbed the most energetic shoppers ever), she has remained the best friend THIS beast has ever had. for all the wicked things she has seen me do and all the wonderful things she has helped me become, i am greatful. i cannot wait to prance back to cheyenne and burst an english-shaped hole back into the lives of all the people at the arc, village inn, plato's closet, salvation army and sanford's with my favourite beast by my side. i have learned in a very round-about way what a special creature she is and i will never, ever let her out of my life again. i want to make up for all this lost time and WILL. thank you ashley. thank you so much.

hannah... what a beautiful, wonderfully gentle creature. she is everything i wish i could be with my mental health problems. she always seems so together and strong, even when things are the hardest. she has been a force that could ground me when i felt like everything was spiraling out of control. i love this girl more than most people for what she has been through and what she has helped me through. GOD it is going to be hard to leave her.

paige... she is me, but fifteen years younger. this girl knows everything about me and loves me unconditionally. she is beautiful, fucking smart and so special to me. i love her so much and wish that i hadn't been such a crappy aunt during my time out here... she deserves better and i will make sure that before i move out to washington she is shown that as often as possible.

8. What’s Your Childhood Dream?
like most children, i had many dreams. i remember a few... the big ones. things like... i always wanted to move to england and i always wanted to befriend a tattooist so i could get lots of free or cheap tattoos. those dreams have absolutely become a reality for me. of all the things that i could have wished for as a child, i could have never imagined that they would have turned out the way they have. no child could imagine a future as full of wonder, friends, cupcakes and tattoos as i have made.

9. How Often Do You Laugh?
literally, i laugh constantly, particularly lately. like, if i had to allocate an amount of time i spend during a day laughing, i would say like, five to seven hours a day? i love to laugh. it makes me feel amazing and releases such happy endorphins.

10. What Makes You Smile?
mmm... most things make me smile. i shall name as many as i can think of right this instant...

this question, the muffin, pow pow, puppies, letters from people, excellent music, good memories, photos of my mum, thinking about my future, dane cook, the muffin's voice, larry david, chevy, getting cards from people, reading my lists, finding a penny that's head's up, taxidermy, moustaches, lush products, novelty mugs, seeing a rabbit yawn, zombie films, tatty nick nacks, spreadsheets, stationary, katie price, really fast internet connections, really camp men, boys in glasses, eye contact, letters from paige, imagining all the things i'd do if i won the lottery, going on a spending spree on payday, documentaries, being a loose cannon, when i've successfully stretched a piercing, good penmanship, feeling like i've made a good decision, corey mcabee, giant beards, thinking about what i'd do or say if i ever got the chance to meet the queen of england, pens that are loose on the inside so they make noise when you write with them, road trips, remembering something from my childhood because of a smell, memory foam pillows, the smell of new carpet, saving snails from impending doom, watching people eat my baked goods, video games with no life-count, photos of people smoking, good noses, watching films from my childhood, all my THINGS, holding chevy like a baby, normanton arboretum, hulk hogan, cleaning my ears with a cotton bud after a bath, the sound of fake sugar dissolving in a cup of tea, microfibre cloth, writing lists, books with bookmarks built in, when a cinema or movie date with pow pow actually happens, wasabi, when i get a new list, the japan centre, dim sum with janey, all my memories of the disabled dogs i had growing up, good grammar, enunciation, carbon paper, the fact that 'lips' and 'kiss' are interchangeable on predictive text, witnessing amazing things, staying in a hotel, leggings, when i finish a crochet project, slight imperfections in teeth, ali's face when he sings, good sound control at a gig, 'we heart katamari,' when erasable pens actually erase, films being played in rewind, REALLY tall escalators, bacon flavour fries, having a name badge, having a wee whilst i am drunk, cuddling someone whilst i am drunk, imagining how sassy i'd be if i was black, strobe lights, the 'spit' that lavender plants generate as they are starting to bud, extra-thick milk shakes, walking in the sun on a cold day, walking in the shade on a hot day, when i can hear the singer draw breaths on a recording, my cleavage, the pollen that builds up on a bee's legs, brick walls that have warped over time, watching people look in a mirror when they don't know anyone else is watching, going shopping for a specific item and actually coming home with it, grape chapstick, creamy cocktails, the sound wood pigeons make when they fly, magpies, watching the bubbles go in a fizzy drink, songs with great lyrics, stepping on berries and crab apples on the pavement, getting blood drawn, the way a wasp's legs dangle when they fly, having my face touched, hannah zair cuddles, scribbling over things, collages, muscle cars, learning what things interest other people, desperate housewives, feeling warm copier paper cool in my hands, when people call me 'dan dan,' when i get my makeup JUST RIGHT, ticking things off of a to-do list, REALLY glittery eyeshadow, when i meet someone who loves henry rollins as much as i do, sassy lesbians, the smell of american money, listening to people breathe, watching stand-up comedy with someone and seeing what they laugh at, banjos, watching people's lips move when they play guitar, the fact that the muffin has found his way back to me, making fun of man-face, when the muffin's little icon pops up when he comes online, chinese buns, the amount of win my 25th birthday was made of, alastair's handwriting, when people state actual facts in songs and scented tissues.

11. Who’s Your Most Dangerous Enemy?
well, i don't know if he can be defined so much as an 'enemy' but more as someone who i don't get on with anymore... the estranged. i also don't know if he can be defined as 'dangerous,' but he is absolutely the person that knows a lot of little things about me and has the potential to use it against me in a way that would be less flattering than i would hope.

12. Where Do You Live?

i live at number 7 palmerston street and am very pleased about that fact. my house is perfect and seems to have been made for me to live in it... from it's built-in bookshelves to the hearts on the bannisters, i love this house and all the little things that make it special. i feel very much like this house, this city, this country... they are my home. they are that one thing that people are so often searching for. this place that i live, it is where i always dreamed of living and it is beautiful and special to me for a million different reasons. i have no doubt in my mind that once i have moved back to america i will absolutely come back just so i can walk down normanton high street again or so i can get a chicken breast sandwich from the guildhall. i love derby and every single little thing about it.

13. Do You Think You’re Strong?
i think, absolutely! i feel like in my life i have taken a great deal of things in stride and been willing to accept them and learn from them with little or no resistance. this divorce has been a pivitol event for me as it has really shown me what i am capable of taking on whilst still coming out even better at the other end.

14. What Was The Most Important Thing You’ve Done So Far?
well, i feel there have been two things in my life that have been monumental for the shaping of me.

first was my decision to move to england. had i not done that, i have no idea where i would be or what kind of a person i would be. i cannot imagine what my life would be like if i didn't have all my most special creatures by my side or if i didn't know who the magnetic fields were. my life as i know it today is primarily the way it is due to the fact that i got on that plane that november morning in 2004.

the second has yet to be defined completely, but i FEEL like it is going to be massive... this divorce and all the decisions i have made since are going to make my life... amazing. i think the divorce was the best thing i could have done for myself and this, re-lighting this old flame with the muffin is just... there are no words for how amazing it will be. i will most assuredly keep you updated on how all of this goes, but i have no doubt in my mind that this MIGHT supercede my decision to move to england.

15. What Was The Most Stupid Thing You’ve Done So Far?
there are a few things i've done that weren't EXCELLENT, but i wouldn't say anything i've done was 'stupid,' per say. like, i think staying with chris after the incident last year was not my best decision, but if i hadn't stayed with him, i wouldn't have gone to slovakia or met certain people or learned about certain bands, so i don't wish i HADN'T done it. i don't really know that i can define anything i have ever done as 'stupid' purely because without those things and decisions, i wouldn't be where i am today.

16. Do You Love Yourself?

i honestly, and truthfully do. i adore most everything that makes danie, danie. i love my hair, my attitude, my sense of humour, my creative abilities, my clothes, my rack, my face, my love for all things all the time, my everything. i really do love myself very much.

17. What Do You Fear The Most?
umm... all of my fears are very, uhhh, silly. i have very few really serious fears. i guess if i had to name one, i am terrified that the muffin will make another bad decision and fuck all of this up. i am so, absolutely horrified at the thought that all of this energy that i have put into this will have been in vain if he just decides to do one silly thing. i want this SO bad and it will completely break me if it falls apart.

18. What Is Your Favorite Word?
ohhh... i love lots of words, words i use on a daily basis... they can be seen below:

jerk. flaps, chuff, mince, prance, beast, blatantly, clearly, unbelievable, outrageous and adore.

19. When Was The Last Time You Cried?
two days ago. chris wound me up to no end and i just had to excuse myself to the lounge to have a bit of a frustrated sob. it wasn't a sad cry... just the cry of an incredibly annoyed girl. after that short sob i couldn't seem to stop... i spoke to the muffin and we talked about love and i wept, he sent me a video of himself, i wept... i was a trainwreck.

20. What Is The Best Thing That Could Happen To You Right Now?
if my grandma lent me the money i have asked her for i would be like, miles ahead of where i am right now. i sent her a letter last week asking her for a rather handsome sum of money. were she to lend me this money i would be able to buy my citizenship, put the deposit on shipping my stuff back to america and pay for the muffin to have an even MORE glorious time when he comes to visit in march. that money would help me in leaps and bounds.

21. What Is The Worst Thing That Could Happen To You Right Now?
perhaps something involving the muffin making a terrible decision. it would devastate me emotionally... devastate me, but i guess i would survive. i have survived so many other times. ummm... perhaps if the landlord were to say he wants me out of the house in january. that would be pretty horrible. i don't know what i would do with myself.

22. Picture Yourself 5 Years From Now...
mmm... december 3rd 2014. at the moment i am seeing danie and the muffin having just decorated for christmas in their house. perhaps participatwing in a lot of shopping dates and snuggling in really warm under a fabulous 'mink' blanket on the sofa for moviedates that feature foot rubs, raspberry mint hot chocolate and tickles. i am seeing danie doing a lot of pre-christmas baking and perhaps creating a lot of toys and things for molly, her ashley and her british beasts. i can see us living in washington in a precious little house with our still young-acting sausage dog prancing around our feet in the kitchen as we cook meals together and sleeping under the table as we sort out the bills and christmas cards. i am seeing wonderful new beginnings and the most beautiful future anyone could ever dream of.

23. Do You Regret Anything?
honestly, i do not regret one single thing that has ever happened in my life. i am so, outrageously content with every aspect of my day-to-day at the moment and i hate to think what missing out on any one little aspect of my past might have changed it. i love my life and i love even the tiniest little strokes that has made this painting as beautiful as it is today.

24. What’s The First Thing You Do In The Morning?
the instant my alarm goes off i grab my mobile (where my alarm lives) and contemplate for the next five seconds whether or not i should press 'snooze.' after i've decided not to sleep later i bumble my way to my computer and turn it on... i put on chapstick, wash my face and check my emails... it is all really, very exciting.

25. What Are You Thinking Just Before Going To Bed?
lately i tend to just lie there and make myself giddy thinking a combination of thoughts about the muffin... about what it will be like to see him again and how i would be laying if he was there with me. i am sad and in love, don't judge me.

26. What Was The Highest Point You’ve Ever Been To?
hrmmm... perhaps it was when i climbed to the top of vedauwoo with the estranged. it was an amazing feeling to be able to look down and see all the fog settling over the park.

27. If There’s One Thing In Your Life You Want To Change Right Now, What Is It?
the muffin's relative distance from me. instant gratification ahoy!

28. What Are You Proud Of?
myself and the person i am today. i feel like today, at this very moment i am JUST where i should be with my life. not behind, not ahead, just exactly where i need to be. i am so proud of myself for having been brave enough to take the chances i have and for having befriended the people i have and just generally for being myself.

29. Sum Up Your Life In One Sentence
my life has been outrageously fulfilling and worth every moment.


30. Name The Thing That Annoys You The Most
when people take fucking ages to answer me. i HATE it when i ask someone something and they spend ages NOT answering me straight away. i like it when people use gut responses and when they take like, five minutes to pick what film they want to watch or what time they want to go to dinner it drives me bloody mental!

31. What Is Your No 1 Question To God?
i would ask him if he would write me a list.

32. Do You Have Secrets?
not overall, no. i never, ever go out of my way to hide things from people, someone just ends up getting hurt and that is never fun. i guess the only thing in my life that i am keeping only slightly turned down is stuff surrounding the muffin. and that is purely because HIS estranged is a little crazy and MAY destroy a lot of his things if she knew he and i were talking again. but even with that, i'm not being THAT secret. i guess it is more HIS secret than mine. so no, i have no secrets.

33. What Makes You Laugh?
the muffin ALWAYS has the ability to make me laugh. literally, no matter what kind of funk i am in, he makes my face hurt from all the smiles.

34. Are You Happy?
so, SO happy. like, words cannot even describe how happy i am. i just feel like at any moment i could cry because i am just THAT full of emotion and love and glee. i haven't been this happy in years. years and years and i am so pleased that it has finally come back to me.