being left alone has some odd consequences (or, the return to greece)

so in an effort to regain some sanity (and mostly our own individual lives) liam and i are spending our first night apart in a month. it feels like longer.

but the whole constantly moving house/scared to be bothering flatmates/don't get anything done because all we do is hang out with each other/lack of personal space has left both our lives in absolute shambles.

so, i am home in the big empty quiet. and decided some life maintenance was in order. things like bagging up clothes for charity. throwing away the flowers he gave me weeks ago which were v. dead on the dresser. neatly stacking the book pile by the bed. etc etc.


which slowly dissolved into sorting out the collage pile. let me explain:

the sofa in my room is in a massive bay window. so around the sides and back there are large person-sized gaps between the angled walls and furniture. they tend to accumulate person-sized piles of crap that need regular purging.

the whole lefthand side became the collage pile because i used to stack old magazines or calendars or things that would come in handy for crafty projects and wrapping paper and the kinds of useless modgepodge related activities i fill dull evenings.

part of me is still 6. i know. just be glad it's the part that likes to paste things for fun, not the part that likes to eat paste for fun.

but so back there became home to magazines, newspaper clippings, postcards, flyers, photographs, ticket stubs. anything pertaining to craftiness, preserving memories or vaguely arty went down the blackhole behind the sofa.

and today was the day i craved bare floor, so i started sorting.



it was like a trip down memory lane.

notes from my dad, a weird and hilarious letter form my uncle james, sonali's wedding invitation, my carmen tickets. a postcard from spain, my pass to turnberry, my diploma.

some were hilarious. i found a rhinoceros card from phil from when we first met. back when he had a crush on maggie and when he ruptured his eardrum in a violent flu we went and took care of him. in his drug induced haze, his mother (back in canada) convinced him to send us thank you cards. i found one slid under my door with a mom and babi rhino on it reading:

"sarah -

(prewritten text) May your day be very enjoyable and the year ahead bring everything that means happiness to you (crossed out: HAPPY BIRTHDAY) (end prewritten text)

Thanks for all your help with tea and soup and stuff. My mom was relieved to know I have a few girls taking care of me.

- philip

ps I didn't know this was a birthday card when i bought it"




and of course the icing: the greece book.

in the tradition of the road trip journal of 2001, i took a little notebook with us on our fornight tour of the greek islands back when i barely knew mandy and had the money to jetset europe on someone else's dime.

it is a highly detailed account of our trip written mostly drunk in diners, bored on ferrys and hungover on beaches. that is to say, it's mostly games of MASH, diagrams of six degrees of kevin bacon and our all time best "NCAA double elimination finals" (aka bracketing all your male friends into a tournament of who you would sleep with in a table of either/or pairings leading to the ultimate fuck buddy; usually written with little hearts around it)

and a lot of stupid quotes of our insanely witty selves. i seem to remember us being giddy from sunlight, lack of sleep and too much greek beer pretty much all day. i shall record here some of the most brilliant for posterity, just in case the book falls behind the couch for another year (or twelve):

- "is loitering in god's house a sin?", mandy

- in response to a spotted pigeon: "why can't you mix a black lab and a poodle and get a dalmatian?", sara

- "we are swimming against the grain", sara

- "taste the water. it's like goat cheese or some shit", mandy

- "it's like a vermeer gone wrong", sara (on a picturesque mandy in yellow turban)

- "shafts of light sounds dirty. unless you mean like Samuel L. Jackson Shaft. SHAFT! (insert showy kate hand gesture)

- "is jesus gay?", a drunk us

- "that's fucked the fuck up", mandy

- this is heavy as fuck. it's a fucking baby", mandy (on her heavy and overpacked purse)

- "don't use that swear phrase", sara

- "everyone will be so happy to have us home. you're the crux of their social existance and i'm really fun too!", mandy

*** i am coming to realize (a little late) we sounds retarded. like kirsten dunst and michelle williams in Dick retarded. but i am really really amused so fuck off. ***

- "What the Christ?!?", sara

-"I'm getting so dark I don't even recognize myself. I look like a black lady!", mandy

- "so hold on. i am going to give you the short version of my near death experience with dolphins.", mandy

- "at worst i am my own 12th cousin", sara (on the grady-grady incest possibility)

- on a beach campsite, bored, drunk and with no tent "we don't need no stinkin' tv see? we got a cat. we just need a mouse on a string", mandy (to be fair, there really was a cat)

- "if you have'nt picked out your song what defines you as a couple?", mandy

- "because i'm a beer whore", sara

- "you could find a real mannequin with man-bits", mandy

- "back in the habit man, like sister act 2", sara



and in case you care, I am going to marrry Gerard Butler and drive a mercedes 320 in new zealand with no kids. i had a salmon wedding dress. And Mandy wed Matt Dillon. They'll have 'the square root of pi' number of children and live in North Dakota.

Our hottest friend by far was Maria's boyfriend Dave (think Chris Martin but actually attractive), I spent 787.35 euro (which at the time was £527.52) and lost my virginity.

it was a good trip.

stranger than fiction

life is at its best when you see the cogs turning.

when you can feel the hum of life, the ins and outs and ups and downs that made today, right now, what it is.

my mother always told me it took 14billion years to make me. Every evolutionary step that could have been to elsewhere. Every sperm down the line that was the one, bringing me here. As I am to this place and time and life instead of someone else.

and in the moments I feel its truth, this unending string of conincidence and luck and choice and reason that go back to the beginning of time whichhave made my life what it is today, is such a gift rather than the burden it sometimes seemed as a child.

Today, where I can lie in bed and run my fingers through his curls. Today, where I can have cookies for breakfast because we can't be bothered to go to the kitchen. Today, where I can see the shadow of my brother in the cinema. A year ago, a world away, but it's a hazy grayness of him that makes my heart skip a beat. Today, where I can fret over laundry and argue over dishes. Today, where I can feel ready for tomorrow.

It truly is remarkable I've been given this life. An odd one, a mad dash, a random collection of incidents, an unknown. But it's mine. And it's a wonderful thing.

conundrum

it has occurred to me, considering the number of nondisclosure agreements on my desk, perhaps being interviewed in the paper complaining of government neglect in the visa programme i applied for may not be in my professional best interest.

the question now is how to do i tactfully and discreetly cancel the interview without marring my reputation with the press i will soon so desperately need?

a conundrum indeed.

i am going to implode. the amount of information i have consumed in the last 8 hours is folding in on itself and my brain will shortly collapse into a blackhole, sucking up everything in its path.

that said, my first day was brilliant. well terrifying and so incredibly out of my league i dont even know where to begin. the main phoneline doesnt even ring on my desk (the IT guy says I am too important to field calls from the public) and the secretary asks if I need more tea.

i have a beautiful desk (with french windows looking out on trees) and a fabulous assistant (well, he is only partly mine but is fabulous none the less) and you should see our glorious georgian building with gated elevator and cobbled street! not to mention my perfect tweed pencil skirt and wingtip heels.

the job is already a dream and the life that goes with it is so close I can taste it. last night as i drifted off all i could think was how perfect my life was. well, or how perfect it will be when we have a place of our own and i can walk along the river to my wonderful new job and come home to someone who loves me.

suddenly it all seems to fit.

and i know that's naive. and i know you are sick of my gushing. but i dont remember the last time i was happy. was looking forward to something, not just the end of something. ive always been ready to move. to finish. to go. and now i feel like ive arrived. it might only last for a minute, but i am going to enjoy it damn it. and remember what it felt like to be alive.

i have become a domesticated british octogenarian version of my mother.

so i'll give you the little update:

new years has come and gone. we spent it curled up in bed with champagne and cheesecake. it was a shame they cancelled the fireworks here due to destructive weather, but all in all I think it one of one my best in it's simplicity.

i've left my old job (which i could rant on about, but frankly it's over and i am glad) and begin a new one on monday (which i am not really ready to face with all its lifechanging big step exciting terrifying butterflies of death connotations).

so i'm revelling in a long weekend of limbo

this morning liam and i went for tea and scones at a cafe overlooking the castle...and to see a flat. i am not ready to move in together. but still, the temptation of looking in other peoples homes is overwhelming. i love househunting, especially when i have nothing at stake. so we went for the fun of it and found the picturesque riverside cobblestoned village of turreted flats and windowboxes we may someday move into. (good lord don't tell the gradys.)

tomorrow i think will be a jaunt to a watercolour exhibition and possible the shore, fitting for our drippy gray skies and my fluid lackadaisical moods.

and that my friends, is about all i've got. not thrilling, not even news really. but there you go. i'm here. and it's a little bit random and a little bit odd and usually quite scary and weird, and sometimes just so very perfect. and i am okay with that.