Day 16 - A drunk photo of you.

as it seems the bulk of my photos are of me drunk, i couldn't just pick one. does it surprise anyone that janey's in the most of them?

Day 6 - A photo of someone you love & miss.

right now, today, i miss nick. god i miss him so much. i miss nights in at the pub and i miss random fun emails and posts. i miss the friendship we had. i miss hearing from him.

Day 05 - A picture of your favorite memory.

for me, it's Bar One, collectively. this particular photo was from the day my citizenship was approved, but Bar One was a home away from home for me that made my life magical. personal celebrations, gigs, chainsmoking sessions and nights in after everyone had long gone.

i love everything that makes Bar One what it is and i thank everyone who i met there, for they made it what it was.

<3

i will never accept defeat, i will never quit...

wednesday night became the night that i officially learned how hard it is to be the significant other of someone in the ARMY.

wednesday night i made Muffin ring his commander back, which forced him back into work.

wednesday night i hated myself so much for having him ring his commander back that i drank half a bottle of rum, took a two-hour long bath with the music playing loudly and then spent the following three hours in between vomiting sessions.

today. i still want to die.

i never realized it was so hard. i never realized that i would feel so lonely and i never, ever realized how much his job would affect me.

not all of it has to do with his job. a lot of it is me. like, 3/4 of it is me, my womb and my overactive imagination, but because of his schedule, i am forced to be home, alone, constantly during the day and in the evenings he is just too tired to have much to do with me beyond eating the meal i've cooked and lying in bed with the telly on until he falls asleep within half an hour.

i try to occupy myself. i work out. i jog. i play with the dog. i tidy. i cook. i bake.

none of it seems to offer me any sort of comfort or relief though. at the end of every single day, i still feel the same amount of lonely that i felt when i woke up. the kind of lonely that completely consumes you. the kind of lonely that is stripping me of any desire to continue the routines that i had built up for myself during the days. i've no desire to do the dishes anymore. the laundry only gets done every other day now. i just feel gross and don't want to do much more than smoke and sleep. constantly (but not at the same time, mind, as i am VERY health and safety conscious and am aware that smoking AND sleeping, whilst done in tandem do not mix well).

my bath wednesday night was a drunken release that i've long needed. each of the songs that swirled through the air gave me a different set of memories and images to mull over and pine after.

first was Give and Take by Broken Family Band. a song who's lyrics feel incredibly apt currently. i listened to it on repeat for twenty minutes... the lyrics taking me on an emotional rollercoaster, thinking of Christopher and the destruction of our relationship and thinking of the route my relationship with Muffin is taking now, which leads me to become terrified that i might be the girl described in the song.

second was hit or miss by New Found Glory, which was always OUR song... the song Muffin and i would listen to on repeat until the CD skipped from overuse. i remembered the way we used to sing it and the night, two weeks ago that it came on whilst we were in bed... the way he looked at me and the way he held me as we sang along to the lyrics we had memorized long ago.

third completely took me by surprise in the form of here's what's left by RJD2, a band i'd never in my life heard of, but instantly made me hurt for Bar One, Nick, Franny and everyone that i spent of my evenings with. it's a weirdly beautiful song that even now i find myself traveling back to to wrap myself in the lyrics of.

fourth was to be expected, and was wild is the wind by cat power. the instant it came on i died. the song that jaacqy and i bonded over and the song that reminds me how much i love him and how beautiful he is. it's such a delicately beautiful song with lyrics that make me long for his hugs and kisses.

fifth, as per, ruined me a'la Mr Powers... it was butcher's girl and took me immediately back to eleven in the pee em, six days before i left england. it took me back to the playdate we had with graham that was used as a bit of a practice session for them, but also as a chance for me to film Pow one last time. i cried as i watched him perform, as i usually do, because he is such a strong performer. i cried wednesday because i miss him. i miss having THAT as a best friend. i hate how things have ended and i hurt almost constantly for my Pow Pow and all the things that made our friendship what it was.

as i was pulling myself drunkenly out of the bath the final song came on... one that instantly destroys me on site every. single. time. i hear it. always by bon jovi is OUR song... janey and me. hearing that song brings back so, SO many memories of our first playdate ever, ruining Poison Bear's will to live and... everything. i miss her so much and in the drunken state i was stuck in, i found myself particularly fragile and needed a hug... something i did not get. not even from Booger, who seems to hate it when i sing loudly and obnoxiously.

today... i am still in that fragile hungover state where eating is difficult and all i want is to OMGDRINKALLTHEWATER! i feel lonely and am stuck home again because Muffin has to pull an overnight shift... i just want a hug. i just want to feel okay again. when will that happen?


perhaps after some homemade cookies and a boardgame night with the Lunas. meh. we'll see.

4. get my british citizenship

whilst it happened ages ago, it's worth saying that this, it's been done! after many, MANY stressful nights studying and many bank transfers, i can officially say that i am a british citizen and nobody can take that away from me.

the way was celebrated with Pow, Franny and Nick. July 6th played host to Nick's birthday and my birth into the country i've been in love with since i was five. it was incredibly emotional and stupendously everything i hoped it would be.

thank you england, for taking me in as your own. i'll be back and we'll continue our love affair.

All Weak...

i tend to find the judgements i cast upon myself to be incredibly harsh ones and not at all healthy. i sit here, day after day, assessing the things that i think and the expectations i hold, always marking the final drafts of those exams with a massive, red FAIL!

daily i see myself judging all of these unfulfilled expectations i have with a heavy and austere hand that offers little or no mercy to the tiny danie inside of me that just needs holding sometimes.

i wonder more and more often lately what i am doing and why i am doing it. who exactly i am existing for.

when i'm alone or in certain company i find myself feeling strong and sure of the tasks ahead of me, capable of mapping out the paths i must travel to achieve the things that will lead me to some sort of salvation. the problem is that when it actually comes down to the action part of the plan, my confidence immediately collapses and i end up feeling stupid and petty for having wanted or having felt something. someone will say something or pull a face that will completely crush all of my logic and desire, leaving me with a big, empty nothing in my arms that i have to try to explain. i HATE having to explain myself, especially when i am approaching something with such confidence, only to have it belittled and destroyed. it's this lack of ability that worries me about what my future will look like.

currently, i don't know what my future holds. i am constantly reviewing the things i have in my life. i have been for the last three weeks. mostly, today, though, i am questioning England and all the things i thought i had there and all the things i thought i was leaving behind. i speak to people i thought i was closer to and wonder if i just WANTED there to be something important and special there so i didn't feel so alone. i wonder if a lot of the special moments and friendships i spoke so highly of in the months preceding my departure were just fabrications, musings created by my own mind to help me sleep easier at night and to ultimately try to sabotage my progression subconsciously ("progression" being me moving back to America, Muffin and general life advancement).

all the relationships i THOUGHT i had and held in such high regard seem to have completely fallen apart since my departure and others that i hadn't embraced as much are developing and making me wish i'd expanded or tried harder before my time in the land of accents ran out.

at the end of the day, that's what it always comes down to for me, trying harder. i constantly feel like i need to do all the work and put all the effort in for fear that if i don't, i will lose this THING, this stupid THING (i don't even know what it is, it's just a THING) that, i guess, allows me to prove to myself that i am worth it, that i exist. like i NEED certain friends or objects in my life to prove i am valid and have achieved something.

it's not good and it's not healthy, what i'm doing, this emotional terrorism i am committing, putting myself through.

a huge thought i've been having is whether i should bother going back to England at all now. speaking (or, in some cases, NOT speaking) to people i thought i was so close to before i left has resulted in me feeling empty and wondering either what all the fuss was about or where it all went. a great deal of harsh words have been passed between myself and people i thought i was close to, people i loved. words that have made me question myself more than i can remember ever questioning myself. words that have left me wondering if all the effort i have put in, all the time, love and work, has actually been a waste.

i seem to have completely lost Pow... i'd rather not go into details, but just know it seems to be gone for many reasons. it was gone three weeks ago when i spoke to him on Skype and it's just dilapidated from there. all i've been left with from the ruin of that is a lot of empty and hurt. i felt the relationship he and i had was much bigger than what it seems to have turned out to be and now, i WANT to throw all my toys out of the pram and cause a scene, but really, i know i need to deal with this, whatever it is, with as much caution as i can, so as to salvage any small bits of the beautiful we had together so i can piece them into a semblance of a memory in years to come.

so, after losing Pow, what else do i have there? Janey? she's on her way here... Nick? i've not heard from him in ages. since leaving England i've heard from a small handful of people, many of which i've not expected at all, and the rest of them seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. i guess all i have left, apart from this handful of people, are passing friendships that are meaningful, but can be visited in two-week increments.

all the dreams i have at night have lately been pictures of doom and gloom for England. friends and people that i love abandoning me, hurting me or forgetting about me. i wake most mornings to a furrowed brow and tense muscles, sometimes unable to decipher the real from the dream in the first several minutes of being conscious, leaving me feeling guilty and wondering what i've done to deserve this.

i've abandoned attempting to contact a lot of the people i loved most before i left England because i don't understand what's gone wrong and it just results in me feeling pathetic and worthless... wondering why people can so easily just forget about me and ignore me.

i guess i just feel like right now, tonight, i need validation, like i need someone to tell me that i am going to be okay, but very few people are willing to offer me that kindness. this is where my old therapist would tell me that i need to seek those things within myself, but how am i meant to achieve that when i spend so much time questioning things and beating myself up?

i just feel so weak. so, so weak.

nine days...

With less than two weeks until I leave now I am finding myself doing the same things that I did when I left America… 

All those years ago, when I was just days away from leaving I severed ties… I’m not sure why, but I did. I found myself pushing away the people that I loved the most. Looking back now, six years on, after catching little signs of myself doing it again, I can see that it might have been a way for me to make it easier for them to cope with my leaving… it was an awful thing for me to do because as a result I lost precious time with some people that were very important to me. The time that I lost with Ashley I can never have back and I hate myself for the way I acted… I hate how volatile I turned and I hate every horrible word that I said to her. I turned into this bumptious little creature that only wanted people to offer her the exact support that she wanted or they were not allowed to be her friend (and omg she WOULD delete you from her Myspace!) 

Before, when it happened I blamed it on the people I was pushing away, insisting that they REFUSED to be happy for me so I DIDN’T need them in my life (yes, I was overly dramatic and nineteen). In the weeks before my departure I began hanging out with people I had never really hung out with and ignoring the people that had loved me and supported me for years… I fabricated stories in my head that justified me not returning their calls or not going out on playdates with them when really, towards the end, all they wanted was to say goodbye and all I needed was the love of a supportive friend. I blatantly avoided both and now there are some friendships that I will never have back fully. 

Today though, I see it happening again… I see myself refusing to go out or not replying to texts and justifying it by saying that nobody’s been in touch all this time and now that I’m two weeks away from leaving they’re coming out of the woodworks, so why should I bother now? Urgh. Poison, that is what that is. I realize within an instant of thinking a thought like that that I am being unreasonable and stupid… I realize that I need to just get a bloody grip and stop taking part in this destructive parade again… I realize that what I am doing is trying to make it easier by avoiding having to see faces, more for me this time than anyone else… 

Right now, it hurts to see certain people’s faces. Where I used to go through my photos on a regular basis and work on memorizing the faces of the Nick, Franny, Chris, Vic and Janey… i can’t now. I’ve not been able to go through my photos in nearly a week for fear of falling over into an inconsolable heap of tears, snot and stomach cramps. Their faces make me hurt because, for the last several years, they have played leading roles in my everyday life and the fact that I now have to cut them from the cast list due to site relocation makes me want to die a little (please note, I am aware that I did not list Pow as one of the faces that I typically spend time memorizing and that is because… well… his face has been memorized over and over again and it’s gone bigger than mere facial recognition now. SEE BELOW.)

A lot of the time I just want to be a recluse (not the arachnid, but generally just hermitting away). I tend to want to stay at home and crochet or watch films without having to actually face any of the reality of the situation, which I know isn’t healthy… I need to make sure I am living these last nine days to their fullest potential but at the moment, I don’t want to… I don’t want to go out and have to be reminded of all the things I am leaving, I don’t want to have to start saying my goodbyes just yet and I don’t want to have to start having those final talks with people. 

The fact that I will be leaving in less than two weeks is made worse by the fact that people have now started telling me how much they will miss me. Despite the fact that I KNEW I was leaving and I KNEW that some people would miss me, I had anticipated that a lot of people would realize I’m not really THAT great and just get over it rather quickly which would be less emotional for everyone concerned, but they’ve not and it’s not. People are telling me how much they will miss me and I don’t know how to respond beyond, “I’m going to miss you too.” It’d be nice if it stayed at that, but then, THEN they want to take it further and tell me WHY they will miss me, which forces me to have to think about why I will miss them, which in turn forces my eyes to water and then makes me look like my eyelids have double chins. I don’t like for my eyelids to have double chins, it’s not very becoming. 

I love that people will miss me and I wish I had the actual strength to talk about how much I was going to miss every single person individually with them, but I don’t because I hate crying in front of people and I hate showing actual emotion. I am fine offering random and dramatic displays of emotion for show, but real emotion? Nothanks! I guess the best way for me to progress this post is with a list, hey? A list of people I am going to miss and why… I know I will most likely miss people off and most likely a lot of the people on this list will not even read it, but it’s here, just in case they do stumble across it and also to help me process… 

Pow… I typed his name and had to take a break… the thought was slightly too much. I go through phases where I want to watch him as much as possible but other times I can barely bear to look at his face… his big, sad eyes and giant nose, the face that I have become almost as familiar to me as my own of late is not going to be with me every day now, and, well, at the moment, as described above, I am spending more time memorizing other things about him than his face, as that’s been memorized a billion times over. Lately, it’s been his hugs. That’s what I’ve been attempting to learn. I drive him crazy by asking for no less than five hugs a day and he always supplies them with a huff and then a giant squeeze, occasionally a back-scratch. He grabs me with his giant frame and my chest immediately becomes tense because I know that these hugs are the last of them… after ten days I will not have another Pow hug for a long time. My chest knows this and my heart follows suit and tenses up, making my head go all fuzzy and my eyes start to water. He squeezes me and I inhale, attempting to memorize the way he smells (as if I hadn’t already filed THAT olfactory wonderland away in the old memory bank  five years ago under “safest smell in the world”)… lately, for me, my memories have needed to be more than just visual, particularly with Pow.  I know him so well and as much as I love seeing his face and all the different… sigh. I can’t think about his face right now. Just know that this boy, it will kill me to leave him. I try to make sure I tell him every day how much I will miss him but he always brushes it off with a joke… he doesn’t deal with emotions very well, but he has been amazingly good at dealing with me and my ways of coping with leaving. I have gone through such severe ups and downs with the move and he has held my hand and told me it is okay through every little second of it. I have no idea how I would have gotten through these last four months without him, no idea at all. He’s a solid rock and an incredible friend… the friendship I have with him is better than any film could depict and bigger and more complex than any solar system (UFOs and all). With Pow, I will miss nightly moviedates, dinners and hugs at the top of the stairs before going to bed to text until we fall asleep.  I’ll miss phone calls even though we’ll see one another in five minutes, coming home to hear him tell me about all his revelations from the day and working on projects with him. I can’t bear to think about not having his giant, stupid smile trying to cheer me up when I’m having a hard day and just thinking about the moments that I will miss him singing me impromptu Pow songs makes me feel like staying. I love him and need him just as much as he won’t admit he needs me and am terrified of how I will react to that last hug at the airport. 

Janey… whoa mama, this is a big one. If possible, her and I have bonded more in the last month than we ever have… we are closer and know more about one another than ever before. She is a stupendously incredible friend who has helped me through some bloody tough and occasionally sticky times and I love every single thing about her. She makes me feel completely confident, beautiful and generally okay about myself, and that is something I cannot say about any of my other friends. I am going to miss an endless list of things about her, but for a much shorter period of time as Muffin and I will be flying out to visit her for my birthday and then she will be coming to visit us for Christmas. With Janey, I’m going to miss morningtime phone calls, lewd texts and racist chats. I will miss eating everything all the time, being seen as ridiculously annoying by any shopkeeper ever and people-watching with sometimes embarrassing consequences. She has opened my eyeballs to a lot of things and I will never, ever be able to replace her, and I wouldn’t want to. She’s miraculous. 

Nick… for as little as I see him or speak to him, I never, ever find myself doing anything but being completely mystified by his existence when we DO meet up. He is so personable, fun and energetic and I love that about him. He never misses a beat when there is a need for a funny comment or silly dance. He’s always on hand to make me laugh and smile and give me a beautiful hug when necessary. He’s one I will miss bigger than most because he has played such a huge factor in pulling me out of my rut after my divorce and helping me through seeing Chris in public again. Nick has been so supportive and is really a genuine friend who cares not just for me, but also for what my actions will do to others. I am going to miss the late nights with him after everyone else has gone the most… the nights where we sit in the garden or inside, me with Buddy on my lap and him with a pint in his hand, talking about everything and nothing all at the same time. I love Nick and I love the things he brings out in me. God, with Nick I am going to miss his face, the inside jokes, the pub, his songs, his dancing, working in the kitchen with him and his voice… god I am going to miss his voice. I am certain that aside from his hair, that’s my favourite thing about him. 

Franny… effortlessly beautiful; that was the first thing that I needed to say. Now that that’s out of my system, I can move on. When I first saw Franny I was completely in awe of her stunning face and how beautiful she could make a pair of sweatpants look. I mean, how is that POSSIBLE?! For months I would go to the pub and watch her face (which makes me sound like a stalker… it must be said that i openly watched her face, not from some seedy corner of the pub with an overcoat and hat on and a glass of whiskey in my hand, but from the bar or from the table in the middle of the pub in front of the bar)… she has an indescribably beautiful face that I could stare at forever. I remember we began bonding over some random game on the telly… it was Wales vs. France from what I can remember and I was openly berating Wales (I was not conscious of the fact that this is where Franny is from) whilst gushing about the hairy players on the French team. It was that night that we began talking and from there we have progressed into dinner dates, smoking sessions and endless hugs. I love Franny and wish she was more confident… I am going to miss seeing her make everything she wears look incredible, smoking fags in the beer garden with her and her uplifting texts, which always seem to arrive JUST when I need them the most. 

 Charlie… in the time I’ve been in England I think I’ve only seen Charlieface about five or six times… very brief but incredible visits. We can go months without talking but the instant I see her and our arms are wrapped around one another I remember everything I love about her. she is painfully beautiful and talented… I adore her face and eyes so much. I wish so much that we had spent more time together in the time I’ve been here, god I wish so much… but I can’t help but know that the brief visits we have had were special and perfect in their short-but-sweet glory. I am going to miss the text that make me want to cry and I am going to miss our brief visits so much. her hugs are so beautiful… she’s fantastic and I’m so glad I’ve met her. 

Christopher… as much as I didn’t want to be married to him, I will still miss him. I will miss seeing him places and remembering times when I didn’t hate his face (which, to point out, I don’t hate at the moment, fyi). I will miss knowing that there is someone around town that knows as much about me as he does… someone who will offer me the knowing glances of a hardened ex-husband after seven years in the “danie slammer” (which sounds a bit like a euphemism and was not intended as such… it was more meant to mean that he spent seven years with me, learning about me and with no escape). I still occasionally find it to be quite a foreign concept that we were married and now we’re not, so I will still occasionally miss seeing his big face around and having talks with him. I worry that all ties with him are going to be severed and the thought of that upsets me… he’s a good person and the thought of losing him from my life completely makes my heart hurt. 

Lee Lee… oh my tiny little jewish sensation… my heart hurts for him so big. I added him on Myspace years ago when I saw him on Pow’s friend list and was shocked by how beautiful his face was… not much time passed before I realised his face was not the only beautiful thing about him and fell hard for his jokes, eyes and smell… Lee Lee works at LUSH and therefore HAS to smell amazing constantly (it seems to be a contractual obligation for all LUSH staff). That is one of my favourite things about him and the instant I receive anything from him I smell it, I smell it and fall in love with him all over again. Lee Lee has a sense of humour that is very special to him… the jokes he tells and the way he tells them are particularly funny because it’s him that says them… he and I do not see one another often but we speak on the phone regularly and write when one of us can remember… he is stupendously perfect from a distance or close up and I will miss our conversations, letters (which really shouldn’t stop just because I’m going to America because they will only be BETTER once I’ve moved), beautiful nose, eyeballs, laugh, vegan sass and random LUSH gifts. I can’t believe how happy I am to have randomly added him because of his beautiful face all those years ago. Thanks my little Jewish pancake.

The Tattoo Boys… special in their own private way… if one were to look at our relationship from the outside they would wonder why I hang around there, but I love those boys so much and secretly, they love me too. Kevin, Thomas, Greg and Lee are four of the most gentle, lovely boys in the land and every time I go in the shop I get the perfect mixture of sass and wonderful from them. I love them individually for specific reasons… Kevin because he’s incredibly talented, interesting to talk to and is a genuinely nice, sweet person when you look beyond all the tattoos and scowls. Thomas is incredibly gentle… he tries to put on a front when he’s around Kevin but he’s a young lad that has a really good head on his shoulders and is quite possibly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met in my life. They are all tremendous fun to hang around with and my days in the shop go by so quickly with their banter and stories. I will miss long tattoo sessions and talking about music, artists, ink, aftercare and my ex-husband. I will miss the horrible names we call one another and flipping them off when I see them on the street. I will miss them so much and never, ever trust another tattooist as much as I trust them. 

EVERYONE ELSE…
Goncalves, Challis, Graham, Hannah, Dave, Jax, Leigh, Shaun, Tom, Alison, Judith, Eleanor, Will, Potterton, Mitzy, Karl, Reno, Luke Winn, Don, Pete, Meek, Tree, Culleton, George, Esmee, Tanya, Eddie, Shawn Kenney, Mark, Antonia Bee, Lester, Jaacqy, Buddy, Missy, Thuy, The man from the Caribbean market, Stafford, Theo, Emma, The girls in the Guildhall Market, Dave, Russ, Emma, Liz etc etc... i need to post this or i never will... 

tuesday or something...

i'm tired and stuff... doing another blog, so i won't write a big thing here... just wait for the next blog. 

and have a lovely tuesday... 

and a list... 

 
Playing on swings… it took me two weeks of harassing and prodding him before he submitted. It took me making him an incredible stuffed toy, several dinners, cookies and countless cups of tea before he was willing to finally go play on the swings with me. Last Wednesday Graham and I were due to meet at 1727 to swap the latest edition of our themed megamix swap and then go play on the swings. I changed the time of the playdate due to me being covered in SERIOUS amounts of dust and debris from the latest documents that I have been sifting through for workies. I needed a bath and I needed it STAT! I came home, had an incredible bath, shaved my leggies and put on my favourite trousers and jumper before retiring to the sofa to await the arrival of Graham the tiny. He arrived and we sat, swapped discs and had a fag whilst we mulled-over the songs on the musical gifts we had just given one another. Post-fag we marched to a nearby park and played… the swings were TECHNICALLY designated for the bottoms of toddlers, but we happily perched atop the cages created to hold in even the writheiest of children and talked as we swung. We talked about what wild animals we would be, our first impressions of one another and jobs we used to have as I kicked my legs back and forth to create as much swinging action as possible. I paid little attention to most of the conversation as I enjoyed feeling the wind dance around my face and watched the ground change size below me depending on where I was on my pendulous route. I love swinging and in a small way, I love Graham for going with me because it’s been years since I’ve gone and he’s the first person who’s obliged me. More swinging to come.
losing weight… whilst I’m not doing it in the most healthy of ways, I am still doing it and I feel very excellent about it. I have now developed SUCH a massive stress-ball in my stomach that I can barely bring myself to eat more than about 800 calories a day. I become full very quickly and tend to not find myself very hungry for quite some time between eating. People are worried and… well… I’m not. I don’t feel unhealthy. I feel okay… just a little vomittous occasionally. I am sure it’ll pick up again once I’ve settled, but until then, I can now enjoy the fact that I’m officially below thirteen stone and can fit into my wedding dress again (for anyone keeping count, that means I’ve lost 49lbs, not a lot, but enough to make me a happy camper.)
paté
hugs… I seem to have become the biggest hug-slut in the history of the world at the moment. I am sure all my friends are bloody sick and tired of having me ask for hugs, but I don’t care. Last night, before bed, I asked Pow for a total of five hugs, every one after the first prompting a sassy response from him and a shrug from me. At the moment I want to grab everyone that I love most and cuddle them constantly… I can’t get enough of hugs. They have a natural power for making me feel calm and taking away all the ick that I have in my head, so I will continue using these as my free and easy form of Valium.
Graham hugs… VERY few and far-between, which is what I think makes them so special. I’ve have TWO hugs from him in the time that I’ve known him… the first being in the first couple of days and the second being last Wednesday at the end of the day. It was the tightest, most fabulous little bear hug ever and I want MORE!
things that remind me of people
when boys take their top shirts off and the bottom shirt pulls up too, showing off their tummies… gahhhhhh! Yummy!
the way Nick got jealous of Graham… perhaps last week? I posted an entry on IHTAT that said Graham was the funniest person I had ever met… a statement I said with little or no thought. He’s hysterical and although I’ve met a lot of funny people in my life, Graham usually takes the cake with his amazingly quick wit and seemingly endless knowledge of mostly everything. It seems I paid too little notice to this comment though as it was brought up on Saturday night after the pub had shut and Nick and I were sat alone in the beer garden. I was untangling the wire for my headphones when Nick told me that Graham is not actually the funniest person I’d ever met. I confirmed that he was and Nick and I carried on a conversation circling around reasons why Nick is funnier than Graham and why I am wrong. It was cute and made me want to snuggle him. I love Nick and secretly think he is ever-so-slightly funnier than Graham, but only slightly, and in a different way.
realizing that what I have with certain people is really special… oftentimes I find myself getting jealous when I see other people hanging out with Nick, Pow or Janey… the stupid part of my brain that is not very confident becomes wrapped-up in wondering why I’m not good enough and why they aren’t hanging around with ME… this turns into a horrible spiral that makes me begin hating myself for being jealous and hating the other individual for infiltrating my zone…. Then it clicks: what I have with certain people in my life is so, so special. There are things I will do and say with Pow, Janey and Nick that I’ll never do with anyone else and likewise, there are things they will do with  me and say to me that they wouldn’t dream to do with or tell anyone else, so I know very much that the careful cultivation that I have done on the crops of my friendships has not been done in vain, as at the end of the day, they are still my most special creatures and a small part of them loves me an extra-special amount as well.
the smell of boiling pasta
nights in the pub when everyone else has left and it’s just Nick and me
karaoke
Rob Rouse
being in my office alone
Potterton
fresh green beans
bad (terrible)horror films
walking around with no real aim
planning visits with LaDonna… that’s what every phonecall with my sister features at the moment, planning. We discuss the dates I will be in Cheyenne and what I’d like to do, where I will stay (with her) and how nice it will be to see one another. It’s just going to be so nice to see my family again.
the fact that nobody else’s cakes will do
SIXTEEN DAYS!

do or die...

So… Sunday I was a mess, so emotionally fraught as I sauntered around the kitchen in the back of Bar One that I cried when Nick merely joked that one of my stories was boring. Not a fake cry, but an actual, genuine weep. I have not been THAT emotionally strained in ages… so bad that I couldn’t keep myself from crying when one of my good friends is poking a little fun at me. I literally just couldn’t control the tears as they kept on coming, and the more people tried to calm me down the more hysterical and emotional I got. It was pathetic and whilst I can laugh about it now, I was genuinely mess in the heat of the moment. 

That very special weep-fest came as a result of many things… things which I will list right here, right now in an effort to both process my feelings and also to just let everyone know where I am.

Womb… ahh, yes. The age-old excuse for every woman’s emotional issues, her monthly visitor. Luckily, MY monthly visitor was ACTUALLY visiting at the time. she had knocked on my door, brought in all her luggage and set up camp in my body and made me feel all bloaty, weepy, fragile and generally pathetic. My womb is acting-up an extra-special amount this month, as well, which makes life just SO MUCH fun for everyone. I’ve never in my life felt so fat, never once before cried because I broke a nail and never DREAMED that I would offer such a display as I did to Pow… the display, which he says was “cute” featured me cooking dinner and then curling-up on the sofa into a tiny, pathetic ball of emo and whimpering periodically when something distressed me (ie. a bird flying too close to the window, someone displaying poor acting skills on the films we were watching or Pow’s toe poking me ever-so-slightly in the calf.). I am now over the worst of the womb issues, but still feel slightly fragile, so watch out! 

Muffin… so, I’ve not heard his voice since last Wednesday. That’s the first point. The second point is that I am a needy loose-cannon who needs to get a freaking grip. Let me walk you through the timeline of the last week:  
Wednesday… we talk and it’s nice but extremely brief due to me being the most stupidly busy bee in the world.
Thursday all his computers are taken away and we don’t get to talk at all… two emails and a Skype text telling me he loves me.
Friday is the same.
Saturday he leaves Iraq in the wee hours of the morning and I do not hear from him at all.
Sunday I do not hear from him at all.
Monday I wake up to an email from him and immediately hate myself (as I accidentally woke up early for work but decided to writhe around in bed rather than actually get up, the time I awoke was JUST at the same time that he emailed me)… the email tells me he loves me and that he found some free internet on his phone so he thought he’d say hi. In the evening he posts a hello on my Facebook wall letting me know he’s in germany.
Tuesday I get a text from him at 0622 telling me he’s landed in America and is very tired.
The end. Nothing else. Since yesterday morning I have seen many of the soldiers that he travelled with get on Facebook, send emails and generally have contact with the world… nothing from Muffin. Not a peep. So this is where me being needy comes in. I worry. I worry worse than anyone else I have ever met (eg. If someone says they’re gonna be at mine for 1800, the instant 1805 ticks past, I am freaking out, imagining that they have been in a horrible car accident or have blown me off to go hang out with someone else.) I am irrational and out of control and my mind is racing in a billion different directions right now. Did he die on the car journey from the airport to his house? Has he decided to get back with Karri? Did he and Karri get into a horrible fight and did she murder him or kill herself resulting in a series of investigations and/or hospital/mortuary visits? Is he sleeping? I’ve no idea… all I bloody know is that he’s not responding to the texts I send; I am worried and generally quite fraught. I would be happy with just one little email or update… even if he sent an update to Facebook on his mobile… just something so I know he’s alive. So, danie’s an emotional and worried train-wreck, which is NOT helping my general mental state. 

Pow… every single tiny day that passes makes me love him more and want to leave less. At the end of every day I lie in my bed and realize that he is so totally my best friend and has been a huge source of strength for me for so long… who wants to lose that? The time I spend with him is just so special to me… it makes my heart swell when we spend time cooking or working on our crafts together. I love coming home every day to hear about all the new breakthroughs he’s had with Johnny whilst I’ve been at work. I adore seeing the confused and disapproving looks that our friends give us when we are together, being generally out-of-control and happy, because I KNOW that what he and I have is so much more special than anything most people will ever find in their lifetimes. The bond that he and I have is so huge and magical… he’s my best friend and knows me so well… and I know him so well. We take care of one another and thrive off of one another and I hate thinking of not having that in my life for thirteen months. He’s just amazing, that’s all I can really say…

Nick… I love him. I love him and I hate that we didn’t start hanging out sooner. I look at his beautiful little face and just want to cuddle him forever. I want to bake for him constantly and make him smile. Lately he’s just seemed so sad and I hate it when people I love are sad. I worry about him. I worry that he feels lonely. I worry that he doesn’t get enough face-time with people that ACTUALLY love him. I worry that he isn’t as happy as he deserves to be. I know it isn’t my job to make everyone happy all the time, but with Nick, I feel like he has spent a lot of time making me extra-ordinarily happy and I really want to offer the same back to him. in the short time he and I have been bonding he has made my life so much better… he’s made my smiles bigger and my nights out drunker and I could never thank him enough for that. 

My Family… the pensiveness has begun. The thinking about what it’s going to be like when I get home… how my sisters are going to react to the changes that I have made in my life, both physically and mentally. I would LIKE to think that they would be happy for me because I am their little sister and I am happier than I have been in years, but a part of me reckons that they will see that I’ve got more tattoos, bigger holes in my ears and a boyfriend that they are not the biggest fans of and reject me. I’m not typically the type of person who needs approval from people. I don’t tend to go out of my way to seek out acceptance; but with my sisters… it’s so much different. I spent so many years from my youth feeling so inadequate because of my ideals, morals and the fact that we have different fathers, so when I see myself now, I would like to think that they will see that I have grown-up into a fairly respectable person who’s had excellent jobs, is now a dual-national and is happier than she ever dreamed it was possible to be. Again, I don’t see this happening, so I am just getting horrifically nervous about what it will be like. What they will say, how they will react to Muffin, if they will come to our wedding. Urgh! Family! 

Moving… good god. It’s fifty days away. In seven weeks I will be preparing to get on a plane… packing my bags and hugging all my favourites for the last time for a while. What the fuck? How am I going to cope with that? I am becoming more and more terrified of it… of leaving. I am so scared that I will completely lose myself when I leave… that I will lose myself and that Muffin is thinking of not coming back with me. I am absolutely mortified that he is planning on dropping the massive bombshell on me that says he simply cannot leave america… this terrifies me because I can’t be away for forever. I need to be here, this is my home. the thought of being away from here for more than a year, maybe eighteen months, actually hurts… it physically hurts.
But I’m not just terrified… I am both excited and terrified. Like, I am SO superpumped to see what it will be like to live with Muffin… so excited to see how many kisses we will be able to fit into a day and how many cuddles we’ll have. I can’t WAIT to have his arms, voice and body within arm’s reach at most given moments… to finally have all of this rubbish ocean malarkey out of the way and to just be able to be with one another. I honestly can’t wait. No matter how scared I am, I know that what I will feel when I finally get to go and be with him with no pending date for departure will be so, so much bigger and make any doubts, worries and whatever else my mind can conjure completely disappear. He’s my world and I can’t wait to actually start my life with him.

a little late, but with good effort...

I actually typed this list up yesterday, but the occurrance of many fabulous things made it impossible for me to post it... so here we are. It's still Tuesday SOMEWHERE, isn't it?
Today I am tired. It was a long weekend made magical by the occurrence of good gigs, good food, good hair and general goodness. Despite the wonderful weekend I still have little things looming over my head… things which I’ll not go over now because this is meant to be a blog about hearting things… so let’s get on with the list!

Nick... easy first one for this week. First, because we have spent a lot of wonderful time together and second, because it is his birthday (YAY!)! Mr Parker and I have been spending a lot of time together… I think that we are both realising that I am leaving soon and we should have really started hanging out more often like, a year earlier (well, I think that, I can’t speak for him, but I DO love to think that people enjoy spending time with me and wish they had met me sooner, like I do them).  We are in the process of planning a lot of playdates (seaside camping, trips to his sister’s farm and nights out to see what kind of special transvestites Derby can throw at us) and I seem to be lying in constant wait for days that we get to spend together. The most magical thing I can think of at the moment and what will most likely end up being my fondest memory of Nick occurred on Sunday afternoon after a stint of working in the kitchen with him. I had been emotionally fraught for the entirety of the morning and after he made me cry (not because he’s horrible, but because I was a hormonal, over-reacting weenie who needed to get a freaking GRIP). He and I were sat near the back door of the pub, ready to hop to attention the moment the comedy-attendees outside were released for an interval, when I asked him what he always wanted to be when he grew up (this thought came as I was sat watching him as he bumbled around behind the bar being all cute and personable and very much like someone actually CREATED him to do that job). He immediately stopped, look at me in a very matter-of-fact manner and said that he always wanted to be a cloud but that his mum had to break it to him that this was not possible, as he was not made of gas and air, so he decided he wanted to be an assassin. We then proceeded to discuss how incredible he would be as an assassin whilst Buddy licked my right hand and I sipped a cola with three ice cubes and one slice of smooshed lemon. It seems that the scenes of most of my favourite memories at the moment are set at Bar One, the leading man being Nick with me as his leading lady, Buddy would be the wacky side-kick and…  sigh. I just love Nick… I wish everyone who is reading this could just come to the pub and meet him and fall in love with him like I have. He is such a beautiful, genuine and fun person to be around and I’ve no idea what I will do without him for thirteen months.  

MY HAIR… it appears my hair is only capable of looking like win… no matter how nervous I get about doing my hair a certain new way or cutting it a certain way (yeah, I get nervous about hairstyles occasionally, shut up) I always seem to come out looking incredible. My most recent hairspiration came after I had asked all my favourites if I should bleach my hairs again. They all concluded I should. That was going to be that though, I was going to go lighter and keep doing my hair the same old way… this all changed Saturday morning when, after a drunken sleepover with Nick I pranced (yes, folks, I DO prance in the mornings, hangover or not… I LOVE mornings and people who are forced to be near me at this time immediately hate me) in with a cup of tea to see that Nick’s hair looked EXACTLY the same as it did the night before… I enquired as to how this occurred, what special, magical powers did he possess that made his hair behave so well and how could I get my hands on a bit of THAT shizz? He then bestowed upon me his secrets and it was good. The instant he left I made Pow attend to the bathroom with me to deposit bleach onto my hairs… we talked and giggled and joked that we were just like “girlfriends.” I let it set for a short period before rinsing and repeating. Once my hairs were light enough for my liking I began the rigorous task of coiffing. I teased, brushed, slicked on product (which, if any of you know me, you KNOW that I do not use product in my hair!) and teased a little more before ending up with the most beautiful, majestic coif anyone has ever seen. It is massive, blonde and stays so well that I have not had to do anything to make it look better since Saturday. I wake up, pop some pins in my hair and am ready to rock-and-roll. So there we are… I love my hair and you should all be jealous!
My ipod 

Pow Pow… literally, my favourite person in the world. Why, you ask? I’ll set the scene: it was a Wednesday afternoon, we were at CEX, perusing the DVDs for something stupendous to add to our collection… him near World Cinema, me near Documentaries… we had been shouting at one another in Southern accents all day. Whilst I am running my fingertips across the titles spanning from Auschwitz to Sharks he says to me, “OH! I saw a shop this morning that was selling Toy Story toys!” I turned to him and smirked (this is because whilst I know why this is important to me, I wanted to make sure that POW knew why this was important to me and that he wasn’t just spouting out random nonsense) and asked him why I would want to know such information. He looked at me with a DVD in his hands and said, “Because it was your sister’s first date with her husband and she collects stuff from it.” literally, I almost died right there in that shop… I hopped over to him and rubbed his arm, completely unaware of how he had come to know this information but full of happies because he did. This boy who most would see as a useless, forgetful silly-billy actually listens and remembers things when they are really important. Aside from this special moment we shared, our lives together have been completely blissful. We exist on a day-to-day basis in such a fun, perfect way that I can’t understand how I never spent this much time with him before. When Nick and Franny came round the other night we bumbled around the house making cups of tea and burgers, talking amongst ourselves for about ten minutes before Nick said that we were like some demented couple from a bad sitcom. I love that about us. I love that we can have so much fun together and I love… sigh. I was laid in bed last night after a fabulous evening of din dins (homemade spaghetti bolognaise, in case you were wondering), ice cream and films… we had been laid on the sofa for several hours taking in everything Clive Barker and Stephen King had to offer us, both eating out of the same tub of ice cream and randomly chatting before we had our nightly hug at the top of the stairs and went to our perspective rooms and texted each other from bed until we fell asleep (yeah, I get it, we’re homosexuals). As I was drifting off I rolled over and thought to myself that this is my best friend and I have no idea how I am going to spend a year away from him… how I am going to go a year without having his reassuring glances, his jokes and random singing… nobody knows me as well as Pow does and I worry nobody ever will. He’s amazing and I love our friendship so, so much. Being away from him is gonna make this the hardest thirteen months of my life.
Franny
Sellotape… OMG!! ON EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME!
Dr Pepper
REALLY creamy yoghurt
Flowers in the Attic… the film and the book… not random flowers on the upper-level of a house.
Chicken
Sweet Peas
John Goodman
Deep Heat 
Watching the stars at night… I’ve only recently come to find the joys of the really little things in life. The stars became my bff at three on Sunday morning after the gig at Bar One. Pow and I were walking home and just as we turned onto our street Pow caused a massive scene, flailing his arms around and shouting about how great the stars were. This came after another scene which saw him tell me about how much he needed the toilet, a cup of tea and some toast. I told him I would take care of the toast and the tea if he went to the toilet and asked if we could PLEASE sit out in the garden and watch the stars. He said yes and I went on to tell him that I had never seen a shooting-star. We approached our door and he said he would make me one… he turned me around and pointed to a gap between some houses and said to watch there. I watched as he un-locked the door and pretended to be talking to the sky, beseeching for it to supply us with a shooting-star. I turned to him and giggled and he said to keep looking. I watched and he shot his hand across my line of vision then shouted and asked if I had seen it. I clearly had and thanked him. he then burst through the door to the toilet as I made cups of tea and perched outside on a cushion. He minced down the stairs and shouted that we needed to eat scones. So there we were, half past three in the morning, eating scones, drinking tea and watching the stars. We talked about how much we were going to miss each other and how good ASDA’s baked-goods were until we decided it was time to go in. like I said, the stars are my new bff… how could someone have an experience like that and NOT love them?!
“Red Light Special” by TLC
Dexter
Daisies
Gardening
Hellraiser
Pubic hair
Disabled animals
Tight shirts on big guns
Snow globes
People-watching with Janey… because there is nobody in the entire world I am more belligerent, judgemental and out-of-control with than janey. We entertain most of the people within our direct vicinity with our incessant discussions about how much we hate that person’s trousers or that man’s pink shirt or OMG that child’s face. We are delightful and fun and it’s one of my favourite things to do with one of my favourite people.
Giving back rubs
My mugs
New York accents
Palindromes
Serial Killers
Saying “GOOOD!”
Videos of people getting their throats cut
Anatomy documentaries
Telling people about my Carbon Monoxide Poisoning incident… oh yes… tiny danie, aged seven. The sky was full of flurries and I was asleep in the back of our old car. I don’t actually remember anything from that night, just what my mum told me… that I had shot up, started trying to take my trousers off and then passed-out again. my mum grabbed me and hung my head out the window as her boyfriend drove us to the hospital. I was air-lifted to the children’s hospital in Denver and was there for several weeks, watching The Little Mermaid constantly until I was allowed to go home… I always find it fun and interesting to be able to tell people that I had such a serious accident (can it be referred to as an ‘accident?’ it’s not technically an accident, is it?) when I was a child. 
Thick-framed glasses
Getting lovely emails from people
Rubber gloves
Lobsters
The first shopping adventure Pow and I had together at ASDA… mmhmm! We spent three hours and £122 there last Tuesday afternoon and every single second of it was amazingly fun. I don’t think we went out of our Southern characters once during the entire shopping experience and I don’t imagine anyone’s ever been stared at so many times as this girl with a coif and ducks tattooed on the side of her head! 
Tiny, fluffy dogs
Oranges
Curly fries
BBQ Sauce
Scissors
Cherry Carmex
Chewing on wax
Tipp-Ex
Popping my neck
Water chestnuts
Feeling like an adult
Good shoes
Being in charge
Geometric patterns
Talking with Pow in a southern accent
My new sausage dog handbag
Imagining being Muffin’s “trophy wife”
The Simpsons
Smoked meat
Good habits
Whoopie Goldberg
Easter-European men
Suckers
Stigmata
Halloween
Ice cream trucks
Tortoise-shell glasses
“Simon Says”
Good pens
“Candyman”
Strong jaw lines
Selena
Marshmallows
Facial wipes
Grape jelly sweets
Scones
Buttercream icing
Jeff Bridges
Good textures
Squids
“The Men Who Stare At Goats”
George Clooney
When Pow talks to Chevy
Popping blisters
When Pow calls me “Superdan”
Buzzards
When clergy are Irish in films
When records skip
Billy Ray Cyrus
When my head’s freshly-shaved
Letterman jackets
The smell of fresh roses
1950’s Cadallacs

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.

it's ready!

It is impossible for me to have a weekend with janey that does not bear the fruit of a billion things that I heart for the week. I always come away from our extra-long playdates with my book heaving with train tickets, found-items, photos and scribbled, drunken handwriting. 

This visit is absolutely no different and should hopefully offer you a fun little list to cast your gaze over this week… please enjoy, dudes.

Polish instant soups
When our designated payday falls on a weekend so we get paid early 

Janeyweekends… oh em gee yes! I love weekends when we are due to hang out; when one of us makes that long trek either north or south to see the other. I love the anticipation that builds up through the day… like when I was a kid and I would be excited about the four-hour long drive to my grandparent’s house in Colorado for Christmas… the anticipation to see someone you love just SO MUCH that you can barely hide your glee. THAT is what I have with janey in the days building up to a designated weekend together. The excitement is only made worse by the fact that we text one another constantly. As the day draws nearer we begin texting more often and the texts tend to contain more swear words. We text about all the things we want to do, many of them not actually things we will ever do (ie. Recreate the choreography from a famous Bollywood film at a local metal club), but still fun to muse about. Then one of us arrives at the other’s train station and we hug. Janey hugs make me the happiest because they are so genuine and warm. Once we’ve settled, the chaos ensues and it’s just magical. She’s such an amazing person and I love every single tiny second that I get to spend with her. The greatest moment from entire weekend this time took place at a little pub in Angel. We marched in there on a whim, wanting a cola and some water (yeah, we’re THAT great on a night out, we drink water. Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it!) and found that it was a soul night made all the more special because it was dedicated to Michael Jackson that night. Upon walking in and perching at the bar we noticed that there were several boys, mostly negros, dancing in small packs throughout the local vicinity. Now, when I say ‘dancing,’ I mean actually DANCING… these boys could bust a move and made janey and I froth like a couple of dogs with rabies. We watched the boys for the bulk of the night and were suitably impressed as we sipped our cola and were photographed by various people, presumably because of our appearances, which was distinctly different to anyone else in the entire place. We danced and enjoyed ourselves for several hours before going home and relaxing in bed for a long night’s slumber.
Tomato soup
Nick Parker
My life… occasionally, I actually have to stop, catch my breath and say, “are you freaking kidding me?!” my life is just THAT incredible. I have literally got everything I could ever even possibly imagine I’d need directly in front of me and I couldn’t be happier. I have all the most amazing friends, fairly good health, a good head on my shoulders, seemingly flawless luck and… well… I mean, my life is everything I ever wanted it to be. I live in England, the boy I fell in love with ten years ago has gotten back in touch with me and we are having a proper go at it, one of my best friends is an incredible musician and artist, I am about to take a one-year holiday to america to travel, work and eat, I get a shit-ton of free or cheap tattoos and I tend to find jobs that embrace the way I live. I have the most perfect life that has been tailored specifically around me and how I want to live. I rarely have to make compromises and often laugh… my life is bliss.
When Dane actually emails me when he says he will
When my expectations aren’t smashed
Drawing things
The blissful chaos in our house… I was concerned about how it would work out. how all of our things would blend together and what the house would look like with the combined forces of his crap AND my crap all under one roof. Needless to say, there WERE some teething issues, we DID make some messes and I’m not gonna lie, there are still corners of the house that look like tiny tornados ripped through them, destroying everything in their tiny little whirlwindy path. It’s not been almost three weeks and our lives have settled into this beautiful little formation that is perfect for us. Our schedules tend to work together well, our stuff has all made bff with one another and I still have my own tiny baking area in the kitchen. I get to wake up every morning, see the skinned clown music box next to the vintage Singer sewing machine and remember that I am living with my best friend and fall madly in love with my life once more.
Morning calls from Janey
Chatting on Skype with people
Picking at my cuticles
Frankfurters… oh my sweet baby jesus in a handbasket! I have fallen in love with frankfurters in a big way. It started when Pow brought some home the other night because I was in a bad mood and he wanted to lift my spirits (and what more could a girl need than smoked hot dogs!?). They started flirting with me even before their packaging had been opened, allowing guffs of their sexy, smoked scent to escape and fly into my nostrils… Pow released them from their plastic traps (which I was imagining, in this foodporn scenario was some sort of food PVC) and poured them into the boiling water. I watched them dance in a saucily seductive way for the next ten minutes as I pulled out the condiments I would slather all over them before making sweet love to them with my mouth. They wriggled and writhed until Pow drained them and tossed them all on a plate… since that first interaction I cannot help but need them in my life as often as possible. Janey fed them to me with boiled rice, a fried egg and soy sauce (a thai breakfast from her childhood) and Pow and I eat them at least twice a week… I am in love with thee oh Frankfurter, please do not forsake me!
Really good cupcake recipe books
Vintage cookbooks
My list book
Date-stamps
Flapjacks
When people praise my blog… it does not happen often, but when it does it makes me a happy little bear!
Jokes that are actually funny
Finding interesting things on the road
Documentaries
The smell of a new car
Rice
Reminders from the night Claire and I got kicked out of three pubs in Derby
Chicken Kievs
Garlic
Facial tattoos
Train journeys
Watching the sun go down
Camera Obscura
People-watching with Janey
British accents
Cyber Candy
Heavy makeup on my eyes
The fact that Nick calls me ‘Bitch Tits’
My rack
Chuck Palahniuk
Photos
Dim Sum 

Franny… oh what a beautiful, tiny little creature. I remember before we started talking more I always used to watch her and be so shocked by what a beautiful creature she was. Her face just lights up in all the right places when she laughs and she has the most fabulous personality ever (and OMG her rack is stupendous!). I love that we have started spending more time talking and hanging out in the last couple of months, and to be honest, I have no idea what my nights out at the pub would be like without her, she makes the nights complete and I can’t thank her enough for that.
Sausage Buns
Ridiculous names for shops
Not being lied to
Muffin emails
When Chris isn’t being a retarded, difficult jerk
Horn sections
People with Down’s Syndrome
Low-cut tops
X-rays
Kimya Dawson
Michael Jackson
Peanuts
Beards
Juno
Muffin’s voice
Steamed spinach dumplings
Dolly Parton
Janey’s mum and dad
Caribbean food… beans, rice and chicken, OH MY! NOM!
Good t-shirts
My jeggings
Retarded dogs
Beautiful lyrics
Spicy fried chicken sushi
Pop art
Jarvis Cocker
Trying to write on trains
How late it stays light out in the summer
Being given good clothes
Air conditioning in the summer
Coloured fags
“Elvis Ain’t Dead” by Scouting for Girls
When songs are able to remind me of a very specific memory/time… like when I hear “Rude Boy” by Rhianna, I am immediately whisked back to the gay club with Nick and Franny, watching Nick do his sassy little dance and making me laugh like I’ve not laughed in years.
Rucksacks
Dancing
Being randomly photographed
Janey’s handwriting
When I’m on a train home and we get to Leicester… exclusively because this is the penultimate stop before  home and who doesn’t love that last home-stretch after a long journey?
Bearded pigs
NOT being sat behind/next to a fucking writhey bastard
The “Cooking With The Stars” videos Pow and I make
Sexual innuendo
Leek and potato soup
Crusty bread rolls
Homemade shortbread biscuits 

Alastair Powers… SUCH a beautiful creature. Our bonding has been increasing in velocity in the last few weeks. We spend more time together and talk much more often. The interactions we have are so much more smooth and perfect than they used to be and I love that about us. When we spend time together everything just immediately falls into place and no matter how often we talk we ALWAYS get mega-excited about telling each other all the tiny things that we might have missed in between. He’s just a special creature and I love spending time with him. I could never thank him enough for the time we spend together.