And Whose Mad Idea Was This?!

Wow, can I stop to breathe yet?

1. We have a house. Really, a flat. It is a bit smaller (which is good) and a lot less expensive (which is also good.) We signed the papers on Saturday.

Up until Saturday was packing madness in preparation for the hypothetical move.

2. Saturday morning I RENTED A VEHICLE (Ford Transit Luton) from a van rental company and I had the joy of driving in Britain for the first time. I thought the wrong side of the road would be the worst. Nope. It is the shift on the left side rather than the right. And those round abouts are HARD. To signal properly you have to use the turn signal that tells where you will be going rather than the direction you actually start to turn in. It makes no sense to explain it, and it made no sense in my head while driving, but it does make sense when thought through.

3. Also on Saturday, we moved. 1 friend helped for about an hour. Stephen's mum's partner (SMP) helped. That was it. I have never before moved without having a million friends to help. It was such hard work. The old house is on the 3rd floor, as is the new one. Neither has an elevator. By the end of the day, we were both so exhausted that we couldn't think.

4. I am mean to my feet. Friday at work a mom stepped on my foot with her stiletto heels. So that is bruise 1 on the right foot. Saturday I dropped a table. That is bruise 2 on my right foot. I also kicked a box (bruise 3) and tripped on a stair (bruise 4.) The same table on my foot again (blood blister on top of bruise 2.) My possibly broken toe ached all day from the activity. I caught my right thumb on the railing of the new stairwell 5 or 6 times (yup - bruises) and somehow I managed to develop very nasty bruises on both knees. Poor Stephen has been plagued with leg cramps since, and with good reason: he and SMP did all the heaviest lifting without me.

5. Sunday was a shopping day, and I am now ready for my flight on Thursday morning very early. I will see you all then. I am going to collapse now.

The Job Interview

Today I had a job interview. There were 4, possibly 5 other people being interviewed. The job, and the interview were in London.

I had to give a 5 minute presentation, which was almost perfectly timed. The interviewers were running late, so I had the chance to have a meet and greet with some of the team that I would be working with before hand. The actual interview itself went ok. I could have been better, but it could have been worse.

I won't know anything until next week, as there is one person who is not actually interviewing until then.

I feel ambivalently about the whole thing. I'll wait and see what happens.

4th of July - British Style

Happy 4th of July.

British style means.... nothing.

No fireworks, no comments, nothing.

Stephen asked me last night if it made me sad to be missing July 4th, and I honestly had to say yes. Part of me wanted, once upon a time and even now and again, to not be an American. There are times when I am ashamed of my country and what we are doing in the world and to it. But I still love my country. I love it even when I am ashamed. I will never stop loving my country. It is a fundamental part of who I am. I am shaped by being American, and I am sad to not celebrate its becoming. I don't want to not be American. I just want being American to mean more than egocentricity and money. I want being American to mean something good not only to me, but in the eyes of the world.

So Happy 4th of July, friends and family. My heart is with you even though my body is not.

New Street and Memory Lane.

Update: We are moving.

We have been looking for a house to move into for a while, and it was getting pretty close on time. I was starting to get pretty worried that we were going to have no place to go. I started having dreams about houses being taken away from us at the last minute, and being homeless. Classic anxiety dreams.

As of yesterday, we THINK we have a house. It is smaller than what we are in now (that's good) and a lot less expensive too. Not too far away from where we are now. So it is easy to walk everywhere that we need to get to. Closer to my work, actually, though further from the Universities and Ash's school.

I actually slept last night without having dreams that involved houses. Nice.

Notice on the sideboard my little map. I'm quite excited to see where all of you are. If you click on the map, it will take you to a larger version, and from there you can even get more detail and see more accurately where everyone is. I have wanted a map on the blog for quite a while. Stephen-the-Computer-God made it happen. He is a nice man. I think I'll keep him for another day or two, anyway.

An old friend found me via Classmates.com. A friend whom I think a bout every now and again, as he was my first date, and my first dance. The 5th grade dance. I have a picture of the two of us at that dance. If it weren't packed, I would scan it in. Maybe later.

Anyway, talking to him led to his wanting caught up on all the time since 5th grade. That, and the letter from Linda Marie to Kelli that I found in my correspondence box. As many of you know, I don't have very many happy memories of those years. So this is a bit of a warning: the rest of this post is going to take a meander down my memory lane. It is most likely a little unpleasant. You don't have to read anymore if you don't want to. I won't be offended.

My only memory I have of my mother from when I was a child was when I was 5. She had the Carpenters on the phonograph in the living room. It was morning, and I got out of bed and went looking for her. I couldn't find her, and started to get scared. But then I saw her through the window in the backyard. She was cutting flowers off of a bush in the backyard. Small fragrant white flowers. She brought them in, wrapped them in a wet paper towel, and wrapped the paper towel in aluminum foil. She was going to take them to work. I remember the maroon carpeting. It was still thick then.

My first memory of me interacting with Linda Marie was of her throwing me against the chalkboard that Daddy had hung for Kelli and I in the hallway. I don't remember what I had done wrong, but I remember being shocked that she had hurt me. I still didn't know that children were for hurting.

I remember Kelli washing the dishes. I remember that she wasn't doing them right - she didn't have her hands completely under the water. It was too hot. I remember her crying. I remember Linda Marie throwing her on the ground and straddling her and punching her over and over again until I couldn't stand it anymore and I though I was going to explode. I remember that I screamed at her "STOP!" It was the only time I ever stood up to her.

I remember being told over and over that I was stupid and worthless and that I couldn't do anything right. It didn't matter what I did. I was a waste of space.

I remember the knot of sick that my stomach would twist into on Saturday's at about 5:00 pm. I didn't even have a clock. My body knew the time. She would be home at 5:30, and 5:00 meant that I felt sick and terrified, huddled on the couch holding onto myself. I have never been so scared as that since.

I remember not brushing my teeth well enough, and Linda Marie reaching across Kelli to slap me across the face to get me to do it better.

I remember not getting dressed fast enough in the 7th grade, and having to go to school in my pajamas. I hid in the library. The boy I didn't want to talk to and hated because he reminded me of me tried to ask me out on a date as I hid.

I remember a trip to the park with the family, in which we were supposed to fly kites. I had to go because I couldn't legally be left home alone, so I was not invited to participate. We had chicken, and I remember eating friend chicken on the blanket while the rest of my family played and flew kites in the park.

I remember the gun. I remember the broom. I remember telling Kelli that everything was ok, go back to sleep, don't come out. I remember hating that she had a half-door at that moment. And I remember that his telling me that I was his good girl after might have made what he was doing ok. Especially when no one believed me when I told anyway.

I remember having to apologise to him and his parents for lying about him. And watching him smirk at me as I did.

I remember Social Services' coming meant that there would be cookies baked. And that I would not get any of them.

I remember the baby bird I brought home. I remember hearing the squeal as it died in the middle of the night. I remember knowing that she had done it.

I remember her throwing away my Cabbage Patch Kid. Its name was Ruby and it had glasses and brown hair like I did. I loved it too much, so it deserved to be trash.

I remember being locked out of the house for 12 hours a day. I remember being hungry. I remember that 8 glasses of water at one time will make you sick, and that water really does not taste good.

I remember her screaming at me in the middle of the night, standing beside my bunk-bed, light on. I had not washed the knives right. I pretended so hard that I was still asleep. I prayed that she would not know that I was awake. She threw the knives in my bed so I would sleep with them and told me that I deserved to be stabbed to death while I slept.

I remember playing in the sandbox that Daddy built for Kelli and I in the backyard. I played cooking shows. Leaves and sand and locust shells became many things, all narrated for a live studio audience.

I remember growing maggots. I caught the fly, and kept it in a film canister. The maggots ate the body of the fly before they died, too.

I remember being told that my mother hated me, that she didn't want me, and that her family was evil. I remember being told that my mother had burned all of my baby pictures. That I was not important enough to be loved.

I remember being called a liar over and over by the people I told.

I am 33, and she still hangs around in my memory. I still don't know if I hate her or not.