tuesday schmoozeday.

so, missed out on a week and, well... i am sorry (as if anyone actually reads this, bar princes stephanie and the muffin), i started back at work last monday and i have been existing from there to the muffin and back there again.

please find my list for the week below: 

• Love… especially mine. This fabulous feeling where you can be unashamedly yourself and not have to worry that your other half might wake up one morning and realise they don’t find you as sexy/smart/funny as they did when they went to bed. This love feels so… huge and pure and real. Even at a distance of three-thousand miles, I still feel the most ferocious of fires burning in my little heart for him. I feel so much like there is nothing I have to hide from him. I don’t have to pretend to be something I am not for fear that he may not want to spend the rest of his life with me. I feel like I am finally allowed to be danie again. Be me and be loved entirely for it, no questions asked. He loves me for everything about me and says he will for the rest of our lives. Why do I believe him? Because he never stopped. He’s held a torch for me since the day we met and it hasn’t faltered one iota, and I feel exactly the same way. He and I are in this for the rest of forever and I can’t help but be excited to see what it looks like.

• My friends… every day I fall deeper in love with all of my friends. They are just the most stupendous, wonderful creatures in the world, all for their own special reasons. I love that I have so many friends here that have supported me through this crappy divorce. I love that most of my creatures in America have been lovely and kept in touch despite me being really lame. I love that ALL my beasties are so wary of the muffin and want to grill him to ensure that he will be perfect for making danie happy. I adore that I have a special, wonderful bond that is tailored individually for each friend which makes what we share outrageously unique and beautiful.  

• Knowing people fear me… yeah, I know this SOUNDS terrible in theory, but me coming back to work has REALLY whipped a lot of people back into shape. Let me tell you one of the things I do… at my job, one of my titles is ‘Casenotes Investigations Lead’ and before I went off, that entailed me monitoring ALL movements of patient files on an online, in-house tracking system. This online system allows people to book files in and out when they have been received or sent. I monitor ALL movements, collate the data and target trouble areas for the purposes of increased training and to reduce the risk of incidents and near-misses (GOD, how fucking awesome does THAT sound?!). So, before I went off, I was in charge of ringing people if a set of patient files hadn’t been moved for seven days. While most people would be fairly relaxed about this, I wasn’t. I wanted people to get it right the first time and if they didn’t, I wanted to put the fear into them so they wouldn’t do it again. As you can imagine, with my time off, not a lot of chasing had been done. One lady has done SOME of it, but she really is fairly chill about it. So in walks danie again, ready to kick some butts. Since my return, I have been gifted a more exciting role that involves me doing a LOT of data collating and reporting and REALLY closely monitoring problem areas but also, when a certain area is giving the lady who is NOW doing the daily calls hassle, they set me on them. After about two weeks of chasing issues with one location, this lady came to me and asked me to sort it… I rang them and asked for the person responsible (grace) and they passed me on to her with a murmur, ‘it’s DANIE, gosh it’s danie!’ I politely asked her to sort it by lunchtime or I would forward a request for her to fill out an incident form for each of the un-booked-in files (of which there were twenty-eight). Within one hour all the issues had been sorted. It makes me pleased to know that I have instilled that kind of fear in people. I ring, they hear my name and immediately stand to attention and sort their crap out. It pleases me.

• Lovely people from IT… of all the people I have missed during my time off, in the top three is a gentleman that works in IT called David Wiggins. Because I am an efficiency and IT nazi, I log A LOT of calls. David has grown to know me as the sassy American who is VERY aware of what needs to be done to troubleshoot a problem. He is also familiar with the fact that danie does not need to be patronized. We always have some fun banter and enjoy a nice little chat when I ring. I made my first call to mr. wiggins today and he was more than delighted when he rang me back. He told me I was a troublemaker and said that he presumed the lack of calls from the for the last two months had been denoted to one of three things: 1) danie was very ill, 2) danie has been able to sort out any and all problems with her computer and network without the help of IT or 3) danie gets more annual leave time than anyone EVER. I confirmed my absence was clearly as a result of the latter and we mused about how nice it would be to have more than 31 days of holiday a year. He was delightful and I appreciate delightful people. Another honourable mention for excellent IT staff is Lydia, who is a super-sassy negro who has the biggest wedding ring I have ever seen in my life. We tend to sit around and eat a lot of wasabi peas and talk about America when she comes into the office.

• Being back at workies… I won’t lie, I was slightly apprehensive to return to work last Monday. Nonetheless, I returned and it was triumphant and has been made of win. Granted, it was slightly strange my first few days (as everyone acted as though I was just some fragile, incapable creature and were therefore too frightened to come to me with work to do) but it soon picked up and I am really, REALLY happy to be back. To have a routine again and feel needed and like I am contributing to something greater than my woollen creations and increasing my friend’s risks of diabetes with my baked goods. I feel like I have just slid right back to where I needed to be and feel really happy and confident.  

•  My typing abilities… 86 words per minutes with only a 92% error rate, GO ME!

• My new necklace… I knew the instant the muffin linked me to the site that I would NEED to own the fabulous piece of jewellery that was highlighted in the first entry. I saw it and KNEW my life would not be complete unless I had it in my life. I ordered the necklace and came home to find it happily awaiting my excited face on Friday. I squee’d and then pranced to my bedroom and tossed myself on my bed and kicked my legs around like an excited adolescent. It is everything I could have ever hoped for and gets the BEST reactions in the world. People either ADORE it or think it is for sure the most disgusting thing they have ever seen. Me, I feel it is the best purchase I have ever made in my life.

• Confidence… since speaking to the muffin, my confidence has increased by leaps and bounds. Every day I feel just slightly more comfortable in my own skin and am expressing that in all the right ways. Since I’ve been in England I have had an anchor around my neck in the shape of insecurity and I am very slowly and cautiously shifting that anchor off myself. I gained a lot of weight in the last five years and granted, my recent loss of nearly 3 stone was not achieved in the healthiest of ways, I have STILL lost it and I feel incredible for it. I feel so much happier to prance down the street when a dress I bought ages ago fits in the morning. It makes all the difference.  
• meeting new people
• blowing my nose
• buying new underwear
• hot water bottles
• teeth
• the fact that i was designated the official orchestrator for 'project secret santa' in my office!
• barbies
• dr pepper
• cups of tea with three sugars and LOTS of milk in
• racist texts from janey
• really FUCKING hot baths
• architecture in helsinki
• rainbowfish
• painting my nails
• augusten burroughs
• my sequinned leggings
• my enchiladas
• home-made spanish rice
• scented markers
• the precious bear mug i got from my janeyface for my birthday
• lying with my body pressed against the radiator on a particularly frigid day
• interesting facts
• being one step closer
• when my horoscope is apt
• OMGASHLEYISENGAGED!!!
• making to-do lists and then crossing things off of it
• the fact that i am now the muffin's friend on facebook (i know it sounds sad, but i LOVE being friends with people on facebook and it was always QUITE a sore subject when it was brought up)
• and the following photos... enjoy!

21: What was the craziest thing you did in your youth?

well, as young lady i participated in far too many things to list... i am trying to think what would be the one that would strike people as most out-of-the-ordinary.

mostly i enjoyed hiding in people's rooms and watching them do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do if someone (especially a little girl) was watching.

one incident i remember particularly well was when my friend Jessica and i hid under the bed of a guy called Bo, who rented out a room in her basement. we was QUITE the stud, and we decided we were going to hide and surprise him when he came home from work... little did we know that he came home, got into the shower and came in the bedroom naked... that is the day that changed my little girl mind forever. after this incident, i was on overdrive for sneaking around and seeing older people's secret bits.

yes. i was a delightful child.

i heart things and things tuesday!! hooray!

well, i think today i will just start and see where i go. i am feeling quite queer in the belly and not completely sure of what is up or down, so... well... we shall see..

• Mr Powers... there are so many creatures in my life that i love more than other things, but this is the one creature that, no matter what bad decisions he makes, i just want to always make happy. everything about him is incredibly beautiful. a lot like me, he goes through a great deal of peaks and troughs when it comes to his depression and general existence, but that never ever stops him from creating amazing music and other miscellaneous art. oftentimes, i know that i can trust him to just lead a life of splendid, but every so often he flies off the rails and i immediately fall into mum mode and feel the desperate need to sweep in and fix things for him. he showed up at a gig this weekend and was a complete train wreck. i just wanted to cuddle him and make him tell me who was upsetting him so i could make it all better, but that was not the time or the place. so i called him after the gig... after someone accused him of stealing things and hit him in the face. i called him and told him that i was going to make it better. i was going to come to his house the next day after work and just spend time with him. when he and i are alone we have some of the most amazing talks ever. we have a huge amount in common because of our depression, so i went over last night and just sat with him. i made cups of tea and did his washing up and made him sing to me. and he obliged. he sang all of my favourite songs, even though he hates singing some of them. ali is just incredible on so many levels and all i want to do is make sure he is constantly happy. we hugged a lot last night. he cried, i wanted to. i just... fuck's sake. he just needs to be happy. so i am helping him fix his CV and find a job. that is what he needs. i heart mr powers more than most other creatures...
• naked singers... at the above-mentioned gig there were a couple of guys who got on stage... not just random guys, mind, they were actually a booked act for the gig. well, they got on, sang a song and i was not hugely excited about them... i was wanting to figure out alastair and all his big time troubles... until hannah pointed out that they had completely stripped all their clothes off. it was then that i tuned in and realised that they were INCREDIBLY hysterical! literally, i almost died. the nudist on the right decided to have a wee on 'guy-sitting-down-with-flat-cap-on' then had a sausage thrown at him that he put up his bum. it wasn't just their juvenile antics that delighted me though, they were really talented. the lead singer had a fabulous voice and their lyrics were totally amazing. as a lyric hussy, it is necessary for any band that i appreciate to be able to weave a beautiful web of words. they did this with flying colours!
• when i see what i will be like as a mum... as soon as i had first seen her, i thought, 'man, she looks bitchin' i hope i am like that when i am a mum.' and she REALLY was. she ended up being the mum of the boy who likes to wee on people's heads and was just amazing. she danced and pranced around and talked to everyone and was just overall an astoundingly beautiful lady. by the end of the night she was outrageously drunk and got on stage for the running around 'mosh' fest that was occurring between all the youngsters at the gig. the best bit ever... and i will never forget this for the rest of my life, happened JUST after i took this photo, when she decided to display just how much she was like her son and pulled her trousers and pants off to show us all her minge. it was literally the funniest thing i have ever seen in my life. it really did make me realise what a loose cannon i am going to be as a mum. before we left i was compelled to run over to her (fully clothed) and give her a cuddle and tell her i thought she was amazing.

• my desk at work!! i am slowly making it my own and it is all really much easier when i have a big fat bay window right behind me... i heart my desk and the fact that the photos are slowly building up. (along with my squishy tomato and wee zen garden husband bought me)

other things i heart?
my ipod, my camera, the goldfishes, nintendogs, my lists, husband, husband kisses, maple syrup and pancakes, crochetting, toothpaste that DOESN'T taste like death covered in baking soda, getting parcels from my sister (especially when i see her handwriting on the box), dressing up, my hair, chevy, the fact that jane and theo are coming to visit soon!!, excel spreadsheets, reading mental health files i am not really meant to, hollyoaks, lee, potterton...