things are just right.

i keep using the word perfect, but it's not really accurate.

what i mean, is things are perfect for me. if i knew what it was i'd like to think I would have arrived here years ago, but all I know is it suddenly fits.

A lot of it is Liam. Is us. How we fit so easily and are so seamlessly well, together. No matter what. Not in an every minute of everyday sort of way. But in a connected, comfortable sort of way. Because as he says, this is a sort of always and forever scenario. Not that we can ever know that for sure, but you know, as much as a romantic pessimist can believe. and god do i want to believe.

I used to think this sort of calm meant stasis. Somehow more boring or lame because it meant routine and settling and boredom. Meant doing things differently or changing what i do because I'd do couply things and be eaten by this entity known as 'us'.

But really it just means we are having adventures together. Same silly shit, same rough edges, but somehow completely and utterly new and better than ever because we are sharing it.

And part of me appreciates this now since we have settled into our new flat with its accompanying routine for two. And partly because we are on a romantic vacation in Bath, the city of Austen, walking down cobbled lanes and picnicking in the park.

And a lotly because we are going to meet the family soon. Not me going home, but us. being with them. for the first time.

I have never brought anyone home to meet my parents before. Not that I ever seriously dated, and not that any of them would have been worth the trouble, but still. It's a hurdle I am approaching rather late in the game, and I don't think it's to my advantage. My parents still act like this is some fling. Some nice boy I go on dates with and am using as a step in the growing up process. I think my being away has left them a little behind in the sara-development scale.

And I worry. That he'll be anxious. That I'll forget to tell Grammy he's a vegetarian and it'll be aweful. That my parents will be either that weird overly friendly 'aren't we young and cool' thing with the swearing and the bodily functions chat or the overbearing nun routine with grilling him and their weird embarassment about intimacy and the palava over who sleeps where. That what should be a joyous occasion (and frankly not primarily about us anyway) will be riddled with akward on all sides.

But I hope more than anything I can share how happy I am, and share how wonderful he is with my family and it's not weird.

Because I have never been happier. I could burst with joy and beam so much it almost hurts. And better than anything that has happened, is looking forward to the rest of it yet to come.

It's about the marriage, not the wedding as they say (no I don't remember who, I read it somewhere. shut up.)

The constant bulletins and newsletters circulated in the world of arts professionals are usually quite sweet and sometimes pithy.

A youth orchestra in venezuela's new initiative to bring classical music to urban slums.

An award for an environmentally conscious theatre production done suspended from tree branches.

The obituary of Pavarotti and Jude Law's risky Hamlet make for in depth reading while the statistic pop and rock stars are twice as likely to die and early death than other people is cocktail party conversation in the making.

But today, pulp fiction is at the forefront with my current favourite idiot:

From an article in ArtsProfessional:

A Polish pulp fiction writer was sentenced to 25 years in jail last week for his role in the abduction, torture and murder of a love rival, a crime that he then used for the plot of a bestselling thriller. Writer Krystian Bala was found guilty of orchestrating the murder seven years ago of businessman Dariusz Janiszewski, in a crime of passion brought on by the suspicion that the victim was sleeping with his ex-wife. Janiszewski’s murder had detectives baffled for years until, that is, they read Bala’s – clearly ill-advised – novel, in which the villain gets away with kidnapping, mutilating and murdering a young woman. No such luck for the bad guy in real life as Bala was sentenced to life imprisonment, at the end of a case that has gripped Poland for months.


Lordy.

I'd just like to state for the record (as it seems this was news to me last night):

1, I don't like sambuca.
2, I am too old for shots
3, work nights out are brilliant, 1 & 2 aside
4, except when one is chairing a meeting at 9 the next morning on the plan for the forthcoming year to the entire staff

I think it has been so long since I have gone out I forgot how to do it.

But in other news, blobel has moved to london. what a random exciting bit of news.

ps - if anyone has an idea if my parents will be decending on my life next week I'd love to know. More importantly, I think Liam will need some preparation No one should be indoctrinated (and possibly adopted) by the Gradys as a surprise weekend excursion.

hello again world.

it's been awhile since I was cogent.

The festival is behind me, the move is in progress and life is grand in a remarkably sunny scotland.

Our new flat is beyond perfect (or will be when i hang the chandelier and sort out the slipcovers) and it's been a such a treat to take time off for the move and settle in properly. Last night I watched the sunset with a glass of wine while I listened to Liam half heartedly hum as he did the dishes. in our beautiful kitchen. There is a perfect sort of calm in this house, we both feel like we have finally come home.

Which is surreal when you think about it. Feeling more at home in this strange new little place than I ever have before. And yes, it's fucking terrifying. This is not ever a life I imagined - namely the living in sin with the british partner and having a jet setter job - it's fucking weird.

But then, having the dream of a quaint little corner of the world to call my own with someone I love has always been the goal, so I am not so far off really. Just refocused maybe. Things are never quite what I expect and yet some how they always turn out for the best. Go figure.

I guess what I mean is I have spent a great portion of my life waiting for it to start. For the dating and courtship and weddings and babies I always thought I was supposed to do because that's how it works. Mostly because I thought that was the gauntlet one went through to find the perfect life in which to forsake it all, and then settle down.

And slowly I have come to understand that the traditional path to the traditional forever isn't really for me. I hate dating, I don't like coddling, and I have never really wanted my own wedding as much as I love attending other peoples. And frankly, I don't see settling down as a change in path but just a readjustment based on new variables. (If and when sara, if and when.). It's all just so different when I think of what I want, not what I think is supposed to be happening. And it's sad that is a revelation.

Once again I have to admit to myself there are no shoulds in this life the way I thought there were. The manual I wrote for myself out of movie scripts and novels was far from accurate and I should stop behaving like a tourist in this world and just live.

Luckily my life went ahead and started without me, or perhaps (as I secretly hypothosise) I work best on autopilot. And now I have managed to get the perfect happy ending without even meaning to.

It's fucking ridiculous. And I have never been happier.