The Bondage Song

0 | May 24th, 2008 | Posted in Friends, Life, music

Sean Brennan from London after Midnight

We went to the Marquee Theatre in Tempe to see London after Midnight, Bithday Massacre and Mindless Self Indulgence and had a great time! Drinks were painfully expensive but that’s to be expected I suppose. Atmosphere was excellent with a great crowd, you could spend a whole day just people watching and I suppose that’s what some do.

London after Midnight was the real surprise, only played for 30 mins right at the start and were simply stunning. Birthday Massacre were disappointing, I like the music but the show was poor and the lead singer was having a little trouble at times. Mindless Self Indulgence were something else, awesome music and crowd interaction, Jimmy Urine (lead singer) is mental … clearly.

MistrsEvilKitten has put most of the show on youtube. London after Midnight have some of their stuff up here but not much and nothing from the other night. But Sean (pictured above) is just yummy… Can I keep him?

*hums* …Close your eyes, open your mind, who do you blame, you’re not the only one, on your knees, who do you please, who do you feed until I find another one…

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Hatched and then gone :(

0 | May 20th, 2008 | Posted in Life

Dreams

Dreams

It looks like someone came and emptied the nest. No trace of chick, eggs, feathers, nothing.

:(

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100 Degrees and Climbing…

0 | May 18th, 2008 | Posted in Life

It’s hot here. Way way to hot. I’m told that in the summer it gets over 126F (52C).

It did rain here a couple of days ago for about 15mins, the rain smells funny and afterwards everything is coated with a fine dust. It didn’t last long though, the sun was out and not long later you wouldn’t even know it had rained at all.

I have to wonder why people decided to settle here in the frst place, exactly what the first folks to come to this desert were thinking? I can only imagine mass sunstroke and a fist full of stupid pills are the most likely cause, or perhaps it was a bet.

Time to bunker down indoors and wait for the sun to go down……

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Happy Birthday Baby!!!

1 | May 10th, 2008 | Posted in Family, Friends, Life, Love

Dreams
I love you more than I can say, my love, my life, my pet, my everything. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

The folks at the TGL organised a suprise party, you can see my pic’s on flickr here, and Caitlyn’s here.

Jim and Sarah came over and we all went out for a family meal to Three Margaritas, miya had something very weird, I discovered mushooms were yummy. Sang happy birthday and her mom called her miya, played on a ATARI 2600 flashback retro games console miya got for her birthday followed by Apples to Apples. We all had a really fun day. Big thank you to everyone who made it happen :)

On behalf of everyone I hope you have the best year yet, love you.

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Diary of my Dreams

0 | May 10th, 2008 | Posted in Family, Life, Love

Dreams
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing my dreams down for years, just another one of those things that come bedtime I’ve forgotten about, no biggie, I don’t remember my dreams anyway, never have.

Now my dreams stick with me for days and I can’t shake them. Fears, uncertainty and memories mingle exposing the fragility of things taken for granted. Hopes and desires papering the cracks fall away like tissue paper leaving me hollow. More often than not I wake wet with tears and if I don’t, the memories dragged back into focus reach into my heart and pull with such force that I can’t stop.

The following are just summaries, all I can bare to commit into writing.

The first dream I’ve left the US and I’m unable to go back, something happens to miya in my absence and I can’t comeback to say goodbye. When I finally do many months later I visit her parents home and see her ashes in a tin on the side. Sarah isn’t here either, I need her and don’t know where she is. My heart is broken, ripped from my body smashed into a despair so intense that I take miya upstairs, open the tin and cut my wrists over her cremated remains. I give her my life in the hope she will live again and we will be together forever.

In the second I’m out shopping with Zoe (my daughter, 7), we’re inside a sprawling makeshift building with many rooms and staircases in every direction each with people selling everything you can imagine, things layed out on tables and colorful blankets. It feels like a carboot sale or market. Zoe is excited and difficult to control, I have to keep chasing her from place to place, telling her not to touch, telling her there are things she can’t have or doesn’t have the money for. My exwife is here but she doesn’t look well, here face is tired and looks thin. She needs to find something but I’m distracted with Zoe and can’t help her.

I wake, it’s very early and I lay in bed crying and trying to clear my head. Sarah and miya are here with me asleep. I know I should wake them but I wont. The sounds of them sleeping are soothing and bring a smile to my face, Let them sleep, just for a little longer.

I’m ok, just dreams, I still don’t remember them most days, I think that’s for the best.

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Trip to Flagstaff

1 | May 8th, 2008 | Posted in Life

Flagstaff

We took a trip up to Flagstaff yesterday to test the car as much as anything else. It’s amazing how the climate alters within only a couple of hours from Phoenix! Flagstaff was freezing cold with puddles of water from recent rainfall, lots of green and trees and a rather nice mall.

We thought about going to the lowell observatory while we were there, but apparently its closed after dark. Likewise, the Grand Canyon is out once the sun has gone down, ah well, we will be back up in about a week or so for those things anyway :)

In other news we went to the court this morning to sort out miya’s legal change of name, all sorted, just have to wait till the 30th to go back and get it finished. It’s a bit of a nightmare compared to doing it in the UK.

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The Great British Pizza Robbery

3 | May 4th, 2008 | Posted in Life

DON’T BUY TAKE OUT PIZZA IN THE UK - YOU’RE BEING ROBBED BLIND.

When we were in the UK we would occasionally get a take out pizza from Domino’s or Perfect Pizza and very nice they were too. Its only now I’m in the US that it’s become painfully apparent that I was being ripped off, and not bit a little either.

Take Domino’s for example. In the UK we would get the 555 deal (not available anymore) as that got you the most pizza for your money, three 9″ pizza’s for £5.55 each. In the US they had the same deal at the same price IN DOLLARS. So with the exchange rate (just shy of $2 = £1) we were buying three pizza’s for about $33 US, the same deal in the US would get you the same amount of pizza for just less than $17. So in UK money, that’s ~£17 in he UK, and ~£8 in the US for an IDENTICAL meal.

Before we left the UK we had a couple of pizza’s from Domino’s and spent £32 (About $60 US). The other day we bought two almost identical pizza’s here for $10 US (about £5 UK).

Why is take out pizza so expensive in the UK? Who knows, but one thing is for certain. Whenever you buy one, someone is laughing their ass off at you.

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Home Sweet Phoenix

3 | May 3rd, 2008 | Posted in Change, Life

We arrived very smoothly at Phoenix airport and were very quickly off the plane and meeting up with miya’s sister and brother in law who had kindly come to pick us up. Nipped out for a quick smoke while we waited for our baggage to come down and went from feeling ok to drained in a few seconds upon leaving the air conditioned building.

It’s hot here, very hot, very very very wall-of-heat hot. The temperature outside is in the low 90’s at times so you spend your day running from one air conditioned oasis to the next. But I digress…

We just about managed to fit the 5 of us and luggage in the car and drove to miya’s parents house where we’re staying for the next month, the only thing that stuck with me from the journey was how cold the air conditioning was and how big all the cars and trucks are.

I was a little aprehensive meeting miya’s parents and very aware that after 25 hours on the move how frazzled we all were. miya’s mother is wonderful and I just hugged her as soon as I walked in the door. After some introductions we dumped our bags and all went out to Dennys for some proper solid food.

The next couple of days are a bit of a blur, between not sleeping much and traveling round shopping I’m not sure what happened. We’ve eaten out quite a bit, drove miles between shops and bought a car. Jet lag sucks.

Phoenix is mostly beige and consists mainly of cacti, scrub and rocks. Mornings and evenings are cool, during the day you just bake. Everything is a lot cheaper than in England.

It’s great :)

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Garcia to Phoenix

4 | May 1st, 2008 | Posted in Change, Life

Landing in Atlanta was bouncy on the way in, but there is nothing like the feeling when the plane stops on solid ground. The plane is running late but we have a few hours before our connecting flight.

The next two hours were probably the worst of my life. Because of the length of my visit without a visa (89 days, right up to the very limit) and not doing the usual tourist thing - my passport was placed in an orange folder and I was taken for an interview. There were about 20 people waiting for their entry to be cleared when I arrived, a single desk with two immigration officers and voices that carry.

An hour later my turn came up and I ended up with officer Garcia, who, having watched knew to be a slime ball. He wanted to know why I didnt have my return plane tickets (that you don’t get till you check in on the day your’re about to fly), what I was doing in the US, why I didn’t have enough cash in my purse to last 3 months, who I was staying with and on and on and on.

He decided to rummage in my bag and look through all the photo’s on my digital camera. Not good. I had foolishly not deleted all the pictures before I flew (some of which were VERY personal). He took the camera to the back room, ten mins later he invited a collegue to come in and have a look, ten mins later he came out still looking!

Decided to look through my laptop but thankfully I don’t think computers were his thing.

Then he found my change of name documents and birth certificate and his attitude went from bad to downright sour. Eventully after a lot of typing he said..

“Against my better judgement and as its your first time here, I’m going to let you enter the US”

OMG - SInce when did entering the US depend on a clerc’s better judgement!! I really hope all the shit he has typed on my file doesn’t impact future visa requests.

I was in shock. I took my stuff and got out of there as quicly as I could to meet up with miya and Sarah. It felt like my world had just split in two and half of me was going back to the UK.

I never never never ever want to find my life in the hands of some random guy again.

The rest of the journey I was drained, on the flight to Phoenix was next to the emergency exit and it was drafty, spent the whole trip with miya curled up in my lap dozing. Next stop Arizona.

To be continued…

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Goodbye Inkland .. Hello Amelica!

3 | May 1st, 2008 | Posted in Change, Family, Friends, Life, Love

Goodbye Home;

I’m writing this on the plane with miya looking over my shoulder, she’s board (lawl), so please excuse a lower than normal amount of spelling mistakes, grammatical gaffs and general dyslexia.

After a few hectic days of packing and giving things away, the last 31 years of my life has been reduced to two suitcases, a laptop bag and a couple of boxes in my parents loft (mostly books). It has been heart wrenching at times to have to go through everything and decide what I would keep and what was sold or given away. To give an idea of the volume of stuff to go through; I was living in a 3 bedroom house, chock full of all the things you would expect. Of everything I will miss my kitchen and sofa the most.

Leaving the place I’ve called home for the last five years wasn’t as hard as I had feared, maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet. The people I loved there is another matter. Every room in that house has so many memories of us all living together, a constant reminder of days passed. Many times I’ve found myself lurching from room to room breaking my heart as the memories come flooding back. Being with my wife, the sound of Zoe playing, decorating with Daizy. Staying in that house for so long after everyone moved on has made their parting so much harder.

I love you all so much, not being near you is the hardest thing I have ever done. But I need to stop crying over what has passed and relearn to look forward.

We arrived at Manchester at 7am, a whole hour ahead of when we needed to be here due to problems getting a later taxi, then we find out our plane was delayed. Fast forward 5 hours and we finally got going an in the air. The flight has been uneventful so far (crosses fingers), the staff are nice and the meal was ok, soft and mushy, but good. The entertainment is dire, shared video screens that turn everyone a healthy umpa-lumpa orange, more static than sound over the headphones and no chance of sleeping. Ah well, could be worse.

We land in Atlanta in a few hours time, then some waiting, then another four hours in the air to Phoenix and I only have an hour of battery life left. Sigh, hopefully I can find some power and wifi when we land.

To be continued….

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