I watch BBC News, and they have a decent amount of coverage of the US primaries. A lot more than I would expect really, considering it's a foreign country and the real elections aren't until November. But whoever becomes President of the US will be able to seriously affect things all over the world (keep that in mind when deciding who to vote for people!), so people are rightly interested.

But in the end, the BBC is British, so the US elections don't make up a huge portion of their coverage. Domestic issues are always going to be more important to people, and even the international coverage is dependent on the views and interest of the nation. So I get the big stories, but not the little day to day items you'll see in the US.

Yet people keep asking me about the elections, wanting to know details. And I find, somehow, that I often have these details to hand. Things that are a huge deal in US coverage, but haven't really been discussed at all in the UK. And do you know how I have those details?

The Daily Show.

Seriously. I watch the Daily Show now more than I did in the US. Partially because it's on at a more convenient time, and partially because it's the only chance I get to see some of this stuff (other than in online news stories, which yes, I do still read).

I can remember during the last election, people commenting that a lot of young people only got their news from the Daily Show, and Jon Stewart finding that a bit ridiculous. But now I find myself in a similar position. Just like I find most of my knowledge of current US pop culture coming from my Best Week Ever podcasts. The best sources in the world? No, but I take what I can get. And it helps me see how perceptions around the world can vary so greatly just with the amount of information available.

And the text about the ring? We had nothing to do with that. Reading that it sounds like I told the designer what I wanted and made Ian pay for it, when in fact we very much worked together. I do particularly enjoy the sentence "She particularly wanted a princess cut 4.3mm HSI diamond in the centre." Because obviously that was what I was thinking when I went into the shop. I don't care what else the ring has...it must have a 4.3mm HSI diamond in the centre!

Still, the designer was wonderful, the shop is lovely, and the ring is perfect.

Coming home from Paris and immediately coming down with some variation of the stomach flu that required me to stay in bed and moan for two days was not great, not lovely, and not good times. But, you take the good with the bad I suppose. And right now, the bad really outweighs the good.

I mean, the days are getting longer, so it is now light when I leave the house in the morning and when I get home in the evening. I found an awesome chicken recipe and an awesome salmon recipe last week. We went out for drinks and dinner in London on Friday night just because we felt like it. I had a great evening on Saturday hanging out with friends, and another good friend arrived in town today from Australia via Canada. And this weekend didn't involve anything moving related for the first time in ages.

It's spring…it's out there. And even if it's still below freezing every night and I have to wear my hat every day on the walk to the train station, it feels like it won't last forever. Like winter will actually end and things will just generally be more pleasant. And that makes everything better.

Along the way, so much has become familiar that it's hard to separate it in my mind anymore. Like instead of having to convert 24 hour time to 12 hour time before I have any idea what time it is, I'm now thinking in 24 hour time. I don't convert the temperature from C to F anymore, I just have a vague idea of whether it's hot or cold (hint: it's cold). And I can recognize Canadians so clearly simply from their accents that it's scary, whereas before I would have struggled to notice someone wasn't American.

And this evening, I'm catching a train to Paris. I packed a bag for the weekend, I came to work as normal, and after work I'll hop a train to London and then catch EuroStar to Paris. Now don't get me wrong, it isn't like I do this every weekend. Hell, I haven't been to Paris since I was 17. But still, the thought that I can just decide to head off to some city in Europe for the weekend if I feel like it doesn't feel that weird to me anymore.

In a way that's kind of sad, because it means that being here feels less special now. But it feels a lot more like home, which more than makes up for it.

But, um...do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture of a ring? Listen, my skin is so pale that I blind people if I'm out in direct sunlight. So any picture of the ring on my hand taken with a flash is just a big white blur. And without flash it's a big dark blur. And with Ian's fancy camera that can take pictures of anything? The ring looks lovely, and my hand looks like it belongs to a 75 year old.

So yeah, I'm working on that.

In the meantime...I CAN give you a picture of my favorite thing about the new flat. More than the big refrigerator, more than the spare bathroom, more than the shower that works (ok, maybe not more than that, but still)...having enough room to purchase this just makes me so happy.

Isn't it pretty? I absolutely love it. Ian...was absolutely tired of sofa shopping and didn't absolutely hate it, plus absolutely loved that it was on sale for half price. He'll get used to it.

But I love it. I love it so much that I made the woman in the store call security to chase off the crazy drunk man who was sitting on it drinking a bottle of whisky out of his coat. Honestly, we went and had lunch and came back and he was still there. And I didn't want him getting too comfortable and deciding to buy my couch!

So, there's that. And if you take a trip over to my Flickr page (using the lovely little link thing on the left that I have never updated and is STILL showing the pictures from my Texas going away party...I'm lazy...) I plan on putting my holiday photos up there tonight as well.

By a Canadian.

Soon I won't sound like I belong here and I won't sound like I belong at home, and I'll have to go to a country that I've only actually spent about an hour in to sound like a local. What's that aboot?

I have this issue about friends. In that I think I don't have any. Or that the ones I do have don't really consider me that good a friend and are willing to completely ditch me if things get slightly difficult (I'm glaring at you here Nick). And also that I'm completely incapable of making new friends. You know...because I'm so annoying and hard to deal with and generally unlikeable.

I'm not saying this to be modest...this is genuinely how I see myself.

Now this is something I've dealt with for years, both on my own and in therapy, and I know how to keep it vaguely under control. Mostly by keeping lists and writing down my feelings and setting realistic expectations. But the thing about getting really busy is that you don't have time for that crap. And the thing about getting really run down is that your emotions are raw to begin with. And so basically, for the last month I've been a complete mess. To the point where I couldn't bring myself to get in touch with people when I was home in DC, because I was convinced they would have a horrible time with me and decide not to be my friends anymore (Karen, Christina...so sorry I didn't call).

We moved because Ian's job moved to London. The plus side about this is that now I live really close to work, in a town where a lot of my co-workers live. This should be a good thing. And yet, it's not working out that way. I'm getting upset that I'm not included in things, I'm feeling like everyone hates me, I'm convinced that my life is just horrible.

Seriously, one of the things that upset me today? Two girls I know are having dinner at another girls house tonight. It's possibly a larger group than that. And I wasn't invited. In my head, this is obviously because they hate me. It's not because I don't actually know the girls who is hosting the dinner...it's because I'm a bad person. And even if it is because I don't know the girl, well, the fact that other people who work here know her and I don't just proves that I'm not capable of making friends...and thus I am a bad person.

Then there's the party tomorrow that I wasn't invited to, even though everyone else in the office was invited. The fact that the same guy has invited me to lunch today and drinks this afternoon would indicate to a sane person that he just forgot to include me on the mass email invite for the party. But I'm probably not going to go to the party, because I'm too worried that he actually doesn't want me there, and that my presence will just make everyone hate me more.

Honestly, it can be exhausting feeling this bad about yourself all the time. And I'm exhausted, and it's just making it worse.

So, there's that. I know that I just need to calm down, realize that having lived here for only 2 weeks it's only normal to not be as involved in things as people that have lived here for years, quit worrying about being friends with everyone and just try to be friends with the people I actually like (shocking concept), and let things evolve naturally.

It's just so hard to do that when my head is screaming at me that I'm a horrible person because no one wants to invite me around for a girls night, or because I can't think of anyone that I'd be comfortable having over for dinner without a big crowd of people, or because I hardly keep in touch with any friends from high school, or because I don't even have contact info for my best friend from college anymore.

Logically, I know I'm not a horrible person. It just really doesn't feel that way at the moment. And I really just need a break from it all. Too bad I actually have to work for a living.

Then, when I was in college, I lived in this house. It was a 10 bedroom house that had recently been moved about 100 yards to get it out of the way of a new highway bypass. When I went to sign the house up for cable, I learned that their were cable outlets in the house, but the actual cable to...well, anything outside of the house...had not been installed. So our $100 installation fee paid for the cable company to send over 4 guys and a huge piece of digging equipment. They then spent two days digging a trench and burying a cable which was then hooked up to the house.

It's people like me that keep your installation charges so high. I'm so sorry.

This is my long winded way of saying that the place I moved into? Didn't have a phone line. At all. Because apparently, that's just the way things work here with new builds. And the builder? Apparently he wired the place completely wrong. So getting a phone hooked up involved two guys who replaced wires and phone jacks, before finally realizing they had to deal with the problem at the main connection which is UNDERNEATH OUR PARKING LOT and thus involved some heavy equipment. But eventually, they prevailed.

All of this sums up to why I haven't updated my blog in about a million years. Because I haven't had internet access, and delicious doesn't work at my office, and I couldn't remember the damn url for the update page, and I'm a big slacker. But hey, now I'm a big slacker in a huge 2 bedroom flat with internet! And a 20 minute commute! 10 of which is walking to the train station! And a 30 minute train ride into London...you know, in case I get bored.

So, I'm back. Hope you didn't miss me too much. Stories and pictures are forthcoming. Just don't hold your breath.

This then, was my plan for my step-mother's birthday card. Because it's going to the States, I can't just buy a stamp and send it off, I need to go into the post office. So, I figured I'd run in and do that on Monday. But on Monday I had a meeting that ran through lunch. And on Tuesday I got stuck in a phone call with someone from France. And yesterday I had an all day training course that ran through lunch.

Which brings me to today, when I finally went to town and finally mailed the card. Which doesn't do a damn lot of good considering Kathleen's birthday is today, and no matter how good the Royal Mail might be, it doesn't actually defy the laws of physics.

So, no way the card is getting there on time. But I figured, as much as my dad bugs me for not writing entries enough (hi dad!), surely he'd notice a new one and pass it along to Kathleen!

Happy birthday Kathleen! The check's card's in the mail.

Why? Why start off your literary work, which I’m sure you’ve put a lot of effort into, with someone else’s words? Why make the reader try to decipher what these quotes mean, even though you’ve totally taken them out of context? Why force us to spend pages and pages trying to figure out how those quotes connect to the story and why you bothered to put them there in the first place?

I admit, like book dedications, I tend to skip reading the random quotes page. Because really, I just don’t care. But there’s this book I just finished reading that had five of them. Five pages of random quotes, a few at the beginning of each section. And with that much space devoted to them, I figured they must be important.

But they weren’t. At least, not as far as I could tell. What they were, were excerpts from some rather long and confusing books. About thought experiments, which are by their very nature confusing and hard to understand. And I’m given a few sentences and left to fumble along trying to figure out what they mean.

I gave up. I’ve finished the book, and the quotes still don’t make sense, but at least the rest of the book made some sense. I’m just going to assume the author got paid by the page. It makes as much sense as anything else.

Ladies,
Please make every effort to keep the bathroom clean. It’s not nice for other user’s (and the cleaner) if you don’t.
Thankyou

This sign annoys me. Not just because there isn’t a space in Thankyou and there shouldn’t be an apostrophe in user’s. It annoys me because I’m an adult, as are all of my colleagues and the sign isn’t necessary. And it’s condescending and passive aggressive.

Not as passive aggressive however, as the sign on the door.

Please wash your hands. Other people have to touch the door after you.

If you don’t think your hands are dirty enough to need washing, why are you going to care that other people have to touch the door after you? What effect is this sign even supposed to have? And is it bad that it makes me want to quit washing my hands just to screw with the person that put it up?

And I know who put it up. I’ve been sitting here for 2 days and I’ve seen her clean her desk with antibacterial cleaner 3 times. I’ve heard her complain about the dirty water that the cleaners use to scrub the sinks. I’ve had her turn down a brownie (a FREE brownie) because other people had touched them. So the germ thing is there.

I’ve also seen her watch a colleague throw a bunch of binders and documents he didn’t need anymore away, and once he was finished she started this conversation.

Her: I saw you throw a lot of stuff away.

Him: Yeah, moving is a good chance to clear out.

Her: Yes. Is it heavy?

Him: What?

Her: The stuff you threw out…is it heavy?

Him: I don’t know.

Her: Oh. Because it’s a very small girl that empties the cans. There are wheelie bins over in the corner.

Him: Oh.

Her: I mean, I don’t put anything heavy in the cans, because it’s a very small girl that empties them.

Him: Picks up can and starts walking.

Her: It is heavy, isn’t it?

Me: Punches her in the face…in my mind

Luckily, she’s moving to a new desk next month. And even if she doesn’t, I’m moving to another new desk in January (fun!). But I think I’m going to have to develop some new visualization techniques to get me through.

Engagement cards seem to come in less variety than say, birthday cards. For the most part, they are sappy. For the most part they have pictures of a couple, or a ring, or champagne glasses, or some combination of the three. And the fronts of the vast majority of the cards we have received contain exactly the same words:

You’re Engaged!

You know, just in case we didn’t know. Though to be fair, Ian did get a call telling him that a neighbour had told her who our best man was going to be, and Ian hasn’t even started thinking about that yet let alone deciding, so maybe they do think we don’t know. Or that we forgot or something.

This got me to thinking, what it be like if all greeting cards took this approach?

It’s Your Birthday! or You’ve Graduated! or You’ve had a Baby! All perfectly reasonable sentiments. It would save card writers so much effort, and save all of us so much effort picking a card out if they all said the same thing. It seems like a brilliant idea!

Then again, You Moved Away and I Never See You Anymore! or You’ve Got Cancer! or You’re Husband’s Dead! don’t seem particularly sympathetic. Of course, send out a few of those and you’d end up with far fewer people you needed to send cards to in the future.

Perhaps I need to back up a few steps.

My vacation was amazing. Singapore is like a whole country designed by a cranky 70 year old woman who spends most of her day telling those damn kids to get off her lawn. It's clean and organized. There's a $5000 fine for graffiti, and a $1000 fine for riding your bike through the underpasses. Chewing gum is completely illegal. And I loved it! It spoke to my inner angry 70 year old.

Bali was gorgeous. Our room led out directly into the pool. There were days that I spent entirely in my swimsuit, and I managed to come home with a tan. And the people are the most friendly people in the world, who participate in small talk because they genuinely are interested in you and your life.

Hong Kong is mental. Like New York City if the whole of it was squished into a quarter of the area. And it was much more Chinese then I was expecting. I mean, it's in China, I should have expected it to be Chinese...but I didn't somehow. Still, it was great to see, and I may or may not have bought a really cheap, really high quality, knock off designer bag. Possibly. You never know.

And, while I was in Bali, Ian and I got engaged.

Hi!

So you see why I haven't written? Because I had to at least attempt to tell people I was engaged in person, rather than having them read it on my blog. Because that's just rude. Of course, I'm sure I forgot someone, so if it was you...I'm very very sorry. And very disorganized. And such.

So yesterday Ian and I had an appointment with a jeweler to design my engagement ring. At the moment I have a lovely ring that we bought in Bali for $8. The one we designed yesterday will cost substantially more than that.

A lot of people told me my ring simply must be platinum. It's just the best, and I must have the best for my engagement ring. The thing is, platinum is really rare. If you melted all the platinum in the world and poured it into an Olympic sized swimming pool, it would only be full up to your ankles. And as such, it's really really expensive. And you know what? It looks just like white gold. Ok, maybe it's a bit shinier, and a bit less gray in color. But mostly, I can't tell the difference.

I can, however, tell the difference between a small diamond and a big diamond. So, my ring will be white gold.

The design is hard to describe, so I won't even bother. I'll have it in about 6 weeks and I post a picture of it then. I can't wait.

So there you have it. I'm back, my passport is full of stamps, and I'm getting married. I hope the next few months are a bit less busy than the last one!

Of course my glasses also have really thick sides, which means I don’t have any peripheral vision when I’m wearing them, which means people who want to get my attention literally have to wave their hands in front of my face. But everything has its downsides.

So anyway, I listen to my iPod all day. And lately I’m finding myself having to work really hard to not sing along. Some random Bowling for Soup song will come on, and I’m worried that I’ll start singing at the top of my lungs that you’re a bitch but I love you anyway. And I think my boss might frown upon that.

The thing is, I love to sing. But I’m not all that good at it, so I have no interest in joining a choir or taking lessons. I just want to sing along with the radio cranked up to volumes loud enough to drown me out. Which is perfectly easy to do when you’re on the road between home and work, or on your way to some random destination.

The problem, of course, is that I don’t have a car. Singing out loud to yourself on the train really isn’t that much better than singing at your desk, though there is less chance of being fired. And whenever I am in a car, I’m in the car with Ian. And I know he loves me and all, but I’d really rather not subject him to that.

So I’m stuck. No outlet. No chance to scream at the top of my lungs that Stacey’s mom has got it going on. Or to declare that I want to break free. Or proudly exclaim that my name is Prince, and I am funky. At least not without people thinking I’m crazy.

And I know that they would think I’m crazy. Because that’s what we all say about the secretary who works here that sings along to her iPod at the top of her lungs as soon as she walks out of the building. Because she is. Crazy. Completely.

But I do envy her.

Perhaps you think that’s a bit extreme. But you know what I hate? I hate having to run for the train in the morning. Because my train leaves from platform 2, and when you come into the station on platform 1 you can see platform 2 right ahead of you, but in order to get there and catch the train that is standing on the platform getting ready to leave you have to run down platform 1, down a ramp, through a tunnel under the tracks, and up another ramp onto platform 2. This makes it hard for me to breathe, my face gets sweaty, and I feel like a big fat out of shape cow. Not the best way to start the day. Yet that was how my commute began today, all because of stupid Scarlett Johansson.

To be fair, it’s Natalie Portman’s fault as well. But I think Scarlett Johansson is prettier, so I plan on taking out most of my anger on her. It’s a girl thing.

You see, Scarlett and Natalie (they made me run for the train…I think we’re on a first name basis) are making a movie in my town. My 2nd smallest city in Britain with fewer than 15,000 residents town. Because what we lack in shops and cinemas and restaurants and anything for teenagers to do other than sit in the town square and get drunk, we make up for in a cathedral. A beautiful cathedral. An awesome cathedral. A cathedral that draws in the tourists and helps keep the shops and restaurants we do have in business.

So, Scarlett is making a movie called The Other Boleyn Girl. In fact, it was supposed to be finished, but it’s been delayed. Something about test audiences not having a clue what was going on, and a need to add a few scenes to shed some light on…well, everything. So Ely Cathedral is playing host to some additional filming and a lot of extras in period costumes. It’s like a Ren Faire without the fried food.

Because Ely is a small town, and the cathedral is at the heart of town, you have to drive past it to get almost anywhere. My route to the station passes less than 20 yards from the front door on a little one way cobbled street. Very picturesque. Very English countryside.

Very blocked this morning by a big giant truck full of movie making equipment.

The entire grounds of the cathedral are covered in trailers. Big ones, with all kinds of pop out extensions and fancy curtains sitting on a carpet that has been laid down over the grass. Now I don’t know about you, but when I’m at work I don’t get a fancy trailer to sit in. I have to hang out at my desk, in a chair with broken arms. Even if I’m not busy, I don’t have a special place I can go to relax and maybe take a nap. I certainly don’t have a mobile home larger than the house I currently live in available for my use during the day. So why, I ask, should Scarlett?

And all those lights in that truck that was blocking my way to the station? You can’t tell me Ely Cathedral needs all of that to look good. It’s Ely Cathedral! It’s beautiful no matter what you do. Which leads me to conclude that all that equipment must be for the benefit of Scarlett and Natalie (and possibly Eric Bana, but I’m willing to forgive him for making me late for the train). I don’t know about you, but no one has ever taken my appearance into consideration when setting up a lighting scheme at work. We have florescent lights that make me look on the verge of death, or possibly just terribly jaundiced. And I don’t even have hair and makeup people to make the best of the terrible lighting situation. I’m on my own, looking pasty.

So I’m bitter. And annoyed. And I blame Scarlett Johansson.

Of course, I’m also kind of excited that famous people are in my town, but don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a hard ass reputation to maintain.

And by the time I was done, I wanted nothing more than to wash my clothes and put them away in a drawer rather than a bag. To wash my hair and then leave the shampoo in the shower rather than putting it back in the cooler I was using to haul around my toiletries.

When I finally did move to Austin, I had my whole place put together in 2 days. Furniture put together, everything unpacked, pictures hung on the walls, the whole works. My dad was impressed at the speed. Mostly, I was just ready to be home and I was willing to put in the effort to make the place home as quickly as possible.

That’s kind of how I feel right now. Ian and I have been everywhere in the last few weeks. We’ve unpacked suitcases specifically because it’s time to repack them for the next trip. And while the trips have been fun, and the people have been great, it’s time for a bit of a rest.

We have 3 weekends in a row where we have no plans. THREE! And because we’ve been travelling so much, the cupboards have gotten a bit bare, so yesterday we did our first real grocery shopping trip in over a month.

In the last few weeks, there hasn’t been much point in buying a lot of food because we were going to be gone so much of the time. So we picked up a few ready made meals, maybe grabbed some yoghurt or cereal for breakfast, and that was it. There was no point getting anything that was going to spoil, because that was just one more thing that would have to rot out in the bin in the back garden because we were out of town for trash day. Again.

Notice how I used yoghurt, bin, and back garden in that last paragraph? Just trying to give you that British flavour.

So we went nuts yesterday. We bought piles of fruit for the juicer. We bought salad and vegetables and potatoes. We bought the biggest baguette I’ve ever seen. We actually managed to fill the “single person’s” trolley that we normally use and seriously considered upgrading to the super deep “family” trolley.

But to gauge how serious this really was…I bought a chicken. A whole chicken, with bones and skin and string tying it into the shape that it seems like a chicken should be in. Never in my life have I purchased a whole chicken. Yet yesterday, in my “oh my God I’m going to be home for 3 whole weeks, I can buy ANYTHING” mania, this seemed like the best idea in the world.

So last night we had roast chicken with roasted potatoes, steamed snap peas, and a few slices of baguette.

It’s good to be home.