Everydaystranger

The races, despite the bad weather, were great fun. I managed to win the last four races, and Angus managed to win the second and third. Our table, which seemed to be copiously refilled with bottles of champagne, was sat right next to the finish line.
We were this close to the fantastic horses.

Great weather, [...]

“I’ve bought a silly hat.” I say proudly into my mobile as I walk through a shopping mall to the train station.
“What?” Angus asks, confused. Someday he will get used to how fast my brain synapses, and he will recognize it by the whooshing sound it makes.
“A silly hat. I’ve bought a great [...]

On Sunday the English skies opened, and the rain fell in sheets. As we watched the rain fall, we struggled on old clothes, loaded up the people carrier car, and drove to Brighton to fix the gutters.
You know. As one does when it rains.
Angus’ house outside of Brighton, in a little village I [...]

It has become apparent to me that the older I get, the more of a tree-hugging eco-loving crunchy-granola vegetarian liberal hippie I am becoming.
Pretty soon, I will just masturbate to thoughts of rainforests, long to know the feeling of running an orangutan refuge center in Indonesia and walk around with a tin of hazelnuts while [...]

When I was in High School I was a typical friendless geek and took a load of AP courses (I am not a big one for Classmates.com. There’s no one that I want to talk to from those years in my life). I took extra courses just so I could graduate early, and [...]

When I first met Kim, it was in a classroom in Texas in the much under-loved and under-supported liberal arts wing. A handful of scattered students sat in the room, awaiting their tickets to go to our trip to France-my first trip out of the US, my first flight for freedom.
I couldn’t stay, I [...]

Dear Helen,
Hi, it’s Me. The older Me, looking back at the younger You. I’m just writing a note to you, to tell you some things that might be useful. You probably don’t want to listen. No-scratch that. Knowing you the way I do, I know you won’t listen. But [...]

The English summer has come, and with it a surprising heat and sunshine that I never suspected England was capable of. It’s nice having my second real summer here. Last summer was chilly, rainy, and miserable. There was about one week of truly warm and short and tank-top combo-provoking weather. [...]

We only just got back, after enjoying extremely hot and sunny days, no mobile phone coverage, and a quiet little slice of life.
We found, in the middle of nowhere and in the far reachest of west Wales, the world’s greatest hotel with the world’s greatest cottage, and we didn’t want to leave.
And so we stayed [...]

The weekend was an ordinary weekend. Hot English summer has arrived, thankfully (as late as Wednesday this week we were walking around wearing sweaters, with the heating turned up high in the house). The heat swizzles around in the house, warming walls, floors, and windowframes that are so used to keeping in the [...]

This morning I woke up with a hangover and a blue ink message written on the inside of my left hand. It read:
Dear God
Now, this message was definitely in my handwriting, but it was strange for a few reasons:
1) I don’t remember writing it.
2) I don’t use blue ink (I’m an inkist).
3) I don’t [...]

I nearly stayed over last night in London after the late-ending day with Parliament.
Angus’ son Jeff is here, and so I woke up this morning glad that I got to stay home today with them both.
London buses are stopped.
London tubes are closed.
We can’t get any information, and all we want is the truth.
The phones are [...]

OK, so two things have unfolded on the work front that make me want to swing my head around and check and see if there’s any water pooling up in the ear canals, or anything like that, since it’s just so fucking bizarre.
The first: Sitting in my pajamas yesterday with a cat on my [...]

Work depression still at the forefront, a week ago I was in Wales overnight for a team meeting. My team, my boys, the ones with whom I feel like I have been to war to get this project off the ground, the ones that I would go to the mats for should there be [...]

My secret for the day: I don’t occur to my family, and I don’t really know how to fix it. I often think if I was prettier, life would be easier. If I was smarter, more successful, maybe I could count for more. There’s something so inately shameful about me that it [...]