Tag Archives: marriage

Mormon Marriage

Posted on February 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

I am so into this whole Mormon marriage thing. It totally makes sense.

I don’t know why it hasn’t spread to the mainstream. I for one am IN.

Obviously with a few tweaks…like the women should be the ones who get to marry multiple partners.

I feel I am something of an authority on this because a) I just read the Red Tent and that whole book is about plural marriage (and periods) B) I’m currently experiencing something resembling a Mormon marriage myself. Well kind of. I mean it’s not consummated in any way WHATSOEVER but our housemate Till is for all intents and purposes like a second husband.

He’s not gay (I need to put that in as a qualifier only because I think he’d like women to know he’s available – and I can highly recommend him to any women looking for lurvvvvve with a German Larry David)…but he’s basically like my gay husband because he’s way more evolved than any other straight man I know. He’s the husband that I go to to talk about horoscopes and to moan about feeling bloated or when John is too busy working to listen to me just talk.

Till will always listen sympathetically without trying to solve my problems and then he’ll offer to make me a banana coconut smoothie or to order food from Bali Buddha or he’ll look up what’s happening in the Mayan calendar to explain why I’m feeling angry/sad/sick/tired…(and weirdly it’s ALWAYS a solar flare).

Also – he’s brilliant at fixing my computer when it breaks.

Like in multiple marriages you have different partners for different things (in The Red Tent the dude goes to one wife for advice on the goats, the other for her curries, the other for ‘entertainment’), Till is my go to husband for the girl stuff (he has long hair so we can even swap conditioner, whereas John shaves his head commando style so he doesn’t even know what conditioner is) and John is my go to husband for well… all the rest . Imagine if you got to live with your best girlfriend AND your husband. That’s how cool it is.

Witness this morning; John is working at the kitchen table. I’m preparing breakfast for Alula. Till is just hanging out. I start talking to John and Till about something. I want an answer to it. I want to be acknowledged. John ignores me but Till listens. And I realise that the beauty in this set up is that with two men in the house the chances are that at any given time one of them will probably be listening. When it’s just John in the house chances are I will be talking into the void. For this service that Till provides I think John feels insanely grateful. He doesn’t need to tune in. Till’s like his wingman.

Then feeling grateful, I start talking about something else. Till turns and walks out the door as I’m mid-sentence.

‘This one’s yours John,’ he calls over his shoulder.

They’re tag teaming me.

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I am such a teenager

Posted on December 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

‘You always do this’

‘Do what?’

‘Act like this’

‘Like what?’ I ask – though in my head I know full well what he is talking about. John is suggesting I’m acting like a teenager.

I shrug, huff, cross my arms over the chest. ‘I’m coming aren’t I?’ I ask slamming the car door.

I follow this with a silent yet dramatic – ‘But don’t ask me to be happy, because that was never part of the deal.’ Then I giggle to myself at the fact I’m now quoting lines from my books – Evie says this in Fated. (Ahh the fuzzy lines where fiction and real life blur…now if they could just blur a bit more and land me with the skills of my protagonists to hurl car shaped missiles at people’s heads and decapitate demons with circular saw blades).

Anyway, I digress. I’m huffing like a teenager not because I still am one but because John is dragging me up a bloody volcano at 7am. Last time I went up mount Batur was a year ago and then I swore on someone’s grave that it was the utter last time EVER as in EVVVVVEEEEEERRRRRR full stop for all eternity poke my eyes out and slap me around the face if I’m lying. Mainly I swore like this because as soon as you get out the car in the crater you’re hit by a swarm of flies so thick you finally understand what a corpse might feel like if left for a month on a body farm. But here I am having to go up the Volcano again because John has signed us up to a tree planting expedition which apparently he claims will be great fun. He mutters something else about how important it is for us to take part in things like this. I hear yada yada community yada green yada something but already I’m thinking ‘this sucks balls.’

Let’s reforest the volcano.

‘But why?’ I ask.

John stares at me sideways and shakes his head in mute disgust.

‘What?’ I ask, ‘I mean seriously, Batur is still a live volcano so isn’t it kind of pointless to plant trees which in all likelihood are going to be directly in the path of the next lava flow?’

And indeed when we get there we’re planting little saplings in lava rock. Lava rock left behind from the last time the volcano spewed out a little stream of molten fire. Just forty odd years ago.

I trudge in my flip flops over the caustic rock, having borrowed a pair of sunglasses from one nice man and got a second to carry my trees for me. ‘We don’t have a shovel,’ I say to John, ‘How are we supposed to plant these things?’

John holds up an old tree branch. ‘We’ll dig with this.’

I want to hit him over the head with it.

The other people laugh and take photos when I start scratching at the dirt to dig a hole. This is apparently as momentous an occasion as Will & Kate’s balcony kiss. John actually films me on my hands and knees. Someone cracks a joke about my nails.

I think sadly of twelve hours before where I was reclining on a day bed by a pool overlooking the beach down south drinking cocktails. I am THAT girl. I am not THIS girl. I make no pretences.

However I do plant all my trees. Then I take Alula’s hand and march back down the volcano to the car, filled with dead flies.

On the way back home John stops the car and buys a wooden table.

Just saying.

Now who’s the bad guy?

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Creative accounting and fringes

Posted on June 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

John asked me.

No, I told him I would.

Let’s get this straight.

I offered.

Because, given that we’ve run though my book advance as though it was on a self-destruct timer, we’re now living off him. And I’ve never lived off any man (other than my dad…thanks dad!). John paying for stuff – as in paying for everything – is totally novel. It’s taken a while to get used to and makes me distinctly uncomfortable…so uncomfortable I have cut my massage excess to just once a fortnight and resorted to cutting my own fringe.

Witness:

(with my two tone roots and my hacked fringe I could audition for a part in Eastenders.)

Even when I was on maternity I paid my way. I’ve always earned the same or more than John. I went to a school where we were indoctrinated with the belief girls could do anything better than boys. I’ve always believed that as a woman financial independence is paramount.

This having to rely on John has been a tough call for me…no really.

Really. (As she reaches for the ice-cream with one hand and speed dials the masseur with the other).

And so even though riches are of course – let’s not even worry about it, it’s bound to happen – coming to me in the form of book royalties, film deals, Barbie merchandising deals (I will have no ethics when they wave that cheque in my face) at the moment I’m broke, so my token gesture to say thanks to John for bearing the load is to offer to do his accounts.

Ahahahahahahahaahaha

The joke may be on him when it comes around to submitting accounts to the taxman.

I sat at my desk with his mountain of receipts and I thought ‘I can do this. Yeah, this is novel…oooh, now where’s excel…ok, spreadsheet thing how do you work again? Now um, right, um…what’s this symbol?’

And then after five minutes I got up and got some ice cream.

When I sat back down I started remembering my other life, when I used to run multi million pound projects. Yeah. I know. Mental right?

I used to play with numbers every day of my life. And I was good – I knew how far to play the creative accounting game (well, ok normally I would play it too far and our amazing finance director would arch his eyebrow in my direction and I would wheedle and then come up with some great creative expression for him to use in exec meetings and then it would all be fine). I kind of miss those days where I could bullshit over a spreadsheet almost as though I was gearing up for a future life creating paranormal young adult novels.

But still, as I sit here buried under a mountain of receipts (with an empty g&t glass beside me) I do shake my head in wonder that I actually used to do this as part of a 9-5 job. Urgh, is all I can say. Once more I am reminded of how spectacular life is these days.

And I’ve only managed to tally up two months’ worth and I’m bored already. John won’t let me be creative with his receipts (why can’t we submit massages and pilates lessons as a work expense?)

Time to play on facebook and twitter. I do so like my life. Have I mentioned that already?

 

 

 

 

 

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The 9-5 encroaches on the dream

Posted on May 19, 2011 | 8 Comments

For those of you who’ve followed us since the beginning you’ll remember that our reasons for leaving the UK were numerous. We wrote these reasons on post-its and stuck them on the wall of our bedroom in south east London before we decided to up stix and get the hell out of dodge. The reasons included: spend more time with Alula, be healthy, swim everyday, no commute, no working 9-5 ever again, live a 4 hour work week and of course, HOT SUN.

Hence Bali. Hence the fact that can we live here turned into, hell yes we can live here and then into oh, look we are living here (I just didn’t want to buy all those different URLs).

We’re lucky, I managed to get a really good book deal whilst we were still travelling and John being the super talented designer that he is hustled his butt off in Singapore, set up his own company and has not stopped working since. We both work pretty much full time (so much for the ‘work a four hour week’ post-it – but we both love our jobs so that’s cool) and admittedly I work beside the pool a lot. And I can stop to watch episodes of Buffy and / or decide that I need a three week break by the sea to recharge my brain whenever I like. We’re lucky and we’re oh so grateful for the way life has panned out.

Up until now John’s been spending about 2 days a week in Singapore but now he’s been offered a job at probably the best design company in the world.  A permanent job that is.

Excuse me whilst I tear up the post-its which said ‘no 9-5’ and ‘no commute.’

Now to me, the idea of ever working again for anyone else sends me into such a panic that my throat closes over in much the same way it does when someone with a peanut allergy eats a snickers bar.

Recently I did my birth chart and discovered that I should never, ever work for anyone because ‘I don’t respond well to being managed.’

If only I’d known that ten years ago. Could have saved a lot of my ex bosses a lot of heartache and stress.

But no point looking back. And thank God I’ve discovered a way of working that doesn’t involve a boss. I mean I have an editor but it doesn’t feel like she’s my boss. It feels like she’s Willy Wonka and she’s giving me the keys to the chocolate factory of my dreams (no oompah loompahs on my factory line, only clones of Alex Skarsgard naked swimming in the chocolate lake…sorry I digress).

Anyway for John this role is like gold dust. It’s a career high, a once in a lifetime offer that will really open doors– potentially to places we might want to move at some point (sagittarius remember?).  But as I write this my bottom lip is sliding up and out. I’m pouting I realize, in a way that even Alula would be envious of.

We’ve come this far just to slip back into a similar routine to the one we had in London only replacing Starbucks with coconuts and south eastern trains with Air Asia. And replacing the child minder with well, um, me. Hang on. This doesn’t feel right.

Ok, so the childcare thing isn’t so bad, especially as Kadek is there to make pancakes. We can hang out at the pool as opposed to Croydon Rec, and there’s no waiting around for trains at London Bridge panicking at whether I’ll make it back in time to pick Alula up. But what does this mean for us if John takes the job?

What does it mean for our relationship? For my sanity as a part time single mother? For Alula? What does it mean for our dream? We haven’t compromised on anything thus far, other than not living in the same time zone as fashion, I’m not sure I want to start now.

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Thanksgiving

Posted on November 23, 2010 | 1 Comment

Let’s get one thing clear. I’m not American.

But I kind of prefer the whole giving thanks idea to the whole big fat man dressed in red, family horror, queen’s speech, overcooked turkey and ooh look more socks day of hell idea.

Let’s get another thing clear. I hate Christmas. Always have. I like living in a Hindu country (well Bali is mainly Hindu so work with me) because I get to put flowers on my elephant statue every morning and stroke the Buddha’s head on my way out the door. I don’t have to deal with Christmas crackers in the shops in July, lugging the Christmas tree down from the loft and unfurling its thousand and three branches and I don’t have to deal with family (sorry family – you know how I feel on this one).

Anyway, this year I’m celebrating Thanksgiving instead. Ok, ok, it’s really because Thanksgiving is also my birthday. But also because – as I fall into the flow of Ubud and get suckered into becoming an enlightened being filled with love and joy (this is when all the people who knew me from before start sending me concerned emails) – I realize how much giving of thanks there is to be done at the end of this my 33rd year, which has undoubtedly been the best year of my life so far.

So here I begin:

THANK YOU JOHN My beautiful, wonderful husband. The man whose belief in the power of outrageous potential led us here. Without you we wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be three and life wouldn’t be as safe, wonderful and filled with music and dancing as it is.

THANK YOU ALULA For telling me every day that you love me more than I love you – even though it isn’t true and could never be true. Today you told me you loved me as tickly as a feather. And I couldn’t come up with anything better at the time. But I love you as tickly as ten feathers. So NAH.

(I just read this to her and she  said, ‘well I love you as tickly as a hundred and a billion feathers and that’s even better than you.’)

THANK YOU MY FAMILY My brother Tom for being the best brother in the world (despite telling me I couldn’t date your girlfriends’ brothers back in the day) and for supporting me as a writer. My parents for ensuring I never doubted I could do anything (except maths and physics dad, and maybe driving – but you were right on all three counts). My sister in law Sarah for her no nonsense Irish sense and my brother in law Richard who is also one of my best friends and a total inspiration. Thank you for helping us get started on the journey.

THANK YOU MY FRIENDS This year has been about saying goodbye to friends and making new ones. I love you Nic, Vic and Sara and miss you billions and hundreds as Lula would say. Thank you beautiful new friends in Ubud who have welcomed us and made me feel at home here in a matter of months.

THANK YOU SIMON & SCHUSTER For buying my books and giving me a lovely advance with which I have been able to buy lots of nice new clothes and a breakfast bowl. I hope I make you tons of money. And that you keep buying my books forever and ever until we’re all so rich we can retire and I get to have three houses – one in California, one here and one in London and can fly first class between them (hey, I’m just putting it out there so the Universe knows what I’m after).

And finally,  THANK YOU UNIVERSE For being on my side. And in advance for getting me the three homes and the first class travel and the wallet the size of Oprah’s.

 

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Punctuality and I part ways

Posted on October 4, 2010 | 1 Comment

Before – once upon a time – when I used to be a professional – I knew what punctuality was. It seems that in the last nine months punctuality and I have become estranged. Possibly permanently.

It’s quite amazing how quickly it happened. John and I have never worn watches and for a time whilst travelling I didn’t have a phone either. And as a result we lost all sense of timekeeping. And really – what did we ever have to be on time for? Ok, there were flights and the occasional train but usually we had a taxi booked which meant we had an alarm call so to speak.

John was always challenged in the time department. I used to get annoyed by it. Now I just sit or lie and read a book until he says ‘right are you ready?’

And then I still don’t move. I now don’t move now until John is out the house, in the car, engine running and has done his two return trips to the house for forgotten items. I have learnt the hard way. We’ve almost divorced at every airport because John will amble, and then decide to go to the toilet whilst they are screaming ‘Final call’ over the tannoy and are pulling the tape across the gate.

In our first week back we had to get to a wedding. We were already running late (we thought – we didn’t really know because we don’t wear watches and the clock in the car was saying something like 43.18) and when we turned into the multi story carpark John decided now would be a good time and place to get into his suit, change his belt and his shoes and his shirt. Choose a tie – I don’t know probably shave too.

I got back in the car. Read five more chapters of my book.

When we finally made it to the church the bride was just about to enter to the wedding march. John tried to get around her and the bridesmaids – would have given the groom a shock – if I hadn’t grabbed his sleeve and held him back.

Anyway all this to illustrate that we rarely make anything on time these days.

Same goes for our flight back to Bali. We made it to check in with an hour to go until our flight. In what was possibly the most stressful car journey of my life – missed the junction and had to head back on the southbound motorway which was jammed.  On arrival at the check in desk with mere minutes until the gate closed, the man stared at our two trolleys and raised a plucked eyebrow.

‘We have paid for excess,’ I panted (we’d run).

Our three check-in bags weighed in at over 96kg. 6kg over the excess.

So there we were on the concourse unpacking the beasts and scattering items all around trying to work out what to purge. – it was like some sick task from the crystal maze – the clock ticking and some pen tapping, disapproving camp air steward tut tutting all the while whilst we stacked things onto the scales to make up 6kg. Needless to say I lost all my books (one of which was a recipe book so no loss there) whilst John purged what exactly? Still not sure – some laptop screen cleaner I believe.

We boarded with about 45kg of hand baggage, claiming ‘laptop bag, laptop bag’ at whoever questioned our three bags a piece. We ran through security and then guess what?

Final Call.

John goes to the loo.

We were the last to board.

Ironically, I now recall, the one item John did empty out of his bag and purge was the alarm clock.

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Work wardrobes

Posted on September 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

‘Daaaarling,’ I say, ‘Do you like my new bikini?’

John pauses to look up from his computer which oftentimes I think he should have married instead of me. It certainly gets more attention and is probably worth more than I am. Not that that would be hard. Anything worth more than approximately £10.34 would be worth more than me.

‘Where’s that from?’ he asks.

‘The shop of top,’ I say. (ok, ok I know I said I’m too old but but but in my head I’m still 17 and that counts for something doesn’t it?)

‘How much did that cost?’ he asks.

I’m indignant. Where was he expecting me to buy a bikini from? Lidl? Was he expecting me to craft one out of three polythene triangles and a bit of string?

‘How dare you?’ I say, ‘You just spent £55 on clothes in H&M.’

John thinks he can shop without me knowing.

John thinks he can use the house account card to buy clothes.

Oh newsflash.

‘Well I needed those clothes for work in Singapore,’ he says.

‘Well,’ I answer, ‘I needed this bikini for work. This bikini is my work clothes.’

He stares at me in disbelief.

‘What?’ I say, ‘I shall be wearing this bikini by the pool whilst I write my next book.’

And he actually can’t argue with that. And neither can the tax man when I put the receipt through expenses.

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Our 3rd wedding anniversary goes well

Posted on August 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

‘It is not my fault. It is the map’s fault.’

‘A-ha,’ John murmurs from the driver’s seat.

‘No. Seriously. This map is totally fecking shite. Joshua Tree could be 5 metres away, it could be 5 miles or it could be 500 light years away. Want to know why it could be any of those? Because this map that you bought from Target is so shit.’

‘Right, so it’s my fault that you can’t read the map?’

‘I can read the map. I can read a map better than you can Mr. turn it upside down to check whether to go left or right.’

‘You get us lost more than I do.’

‘I’m sorry? Did you or did you not take us on a 150 mile detour yesterday through the Mojave desert?’

‘That’s because the scale was off in the Lonely Planet. Anyway, it was fun. We got to see the desert.’

‘It was fun for you because you got to work on your computer. I was the one driving through the desert. Look. This map is shit. I am buying a new one.’

‘It’s a waste of money. We already have a map.’

‘We have a shit map. That is getting us lost a lot. If we spent $20 on a new map we would save that in petrol money for all the detours.’

‘Well you didn’t even buy a map. You couldn’t even find the maps in the store.’

‘Yeah well actually it wasn’t that I couldn’t find them. I forgot to look.’

[Silence]

[For 50 more lost miles]

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In memorium our house

Posted on December 31, 2009 | Leave a comment

We have stacked our bed frame in the garage. The garage is like a giantastic game of tetris and John has played a winning game.  It’s like a vacuum inside. All the air has been displaced by furniture. You can’t breathe if you go in there – there’s no oxygen. It’s like space. So I hope next door’s cat got out before John slammed the door down. Or we’ll go in there and find it stuck to the ceiling like a fly trapped on flypaper.

But the bed – we are sleeping our final night, the final night of 2009, on a mattress on the floor of our bedroom. This creates a crazy visual disturbance for my brain because I’m expecting to swing my legs over the edge and hop down (shuttup I’m short) but now I’m only 3 inches from the floor.  The first time I did this I fell backwards with head spin. It’s cheaper than getting drunk I guess. Not that that has stopped me.

So this is our last night in the house. The place where I’ve lived since I was 17. Though back then it was just my dad and me. I’ve lived almost half my life here and it feels more than a little weird to be leaving. It holds a lot of memories – and still a lot of crap – entombed now in the loft until we have a new address to send it to.  In memorium,  I’m trying to aggragate my top memories of living here:

  1. Bringing Lula home from the hospital. (Ahhhh it’s a baby – WTF do we do with it).
  2. John moving in (and moving into the study where he lived 24/7 trying to finish his Masters dissertation).
  3. That Christmas with all sets of parents (yeah, that was a good idea.)
  4. That crazy tenant with the porn obsession who never left his room (In case you happen to read this we keep being sent your porn brochures – is that what they’re called?  – please could you let them know your change of address? They have entertained us – especially the last one with the b&w pictures of mannacled 50 year old grandmothers from Newcastle showcasing the Kama Sutra but we’re not sure the new tennants will like).
  5. That other crazy tenant who had a psychotic episode in the living room (If you’re reading this, and yes, you know who you are, you’re CRAZY. I only didn’t tell you at the time because I didn’t have a lock on my bedroom door).
  6. The time Lula fell down the stairs (crash bang wallop).
  7. The time I fell off a chair on top of Lula (sorry sorry sorry).
  8. The residents association meetings (yeah, not really).
  9. The time John told me he was ‘just hot’ and one thing led to another and we ended up with a baby and married and packing up a house. Life’s funny huh?

Surprisingly I have no top memories of the last 6 months, probably because it’s been hellish. Want some advice? Think long and hard before deciding to pack up your lives. Actually don’t think. Because if you think about it, you won’t do it. Just do it. Rich keeps telling us that it’ll all be worth it like he’s some poster child for L’Oreal.

In the hope that he’s right and it will be worth it, we just toasted the new year with champagne in the last of our unpacked tea cups. We toasted to  2010 – a year of ‘outrageous potential’ (quoting John’s wedding vow).  Here’s to the new year. Hope yours is as exciting as ours.

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Anything pour moi…except the records maybe.

Posted on November 26, 2009 | Leave a comment

I am going to be drawing some parallels now between myself and Diane Kruger because I look just like her. So get ready.

We just watched this film called ‘Anything for her’ (spoiler alert!). In it Diane is accused of killing her boss and sentenced to 20 years in a prison where the hallogen strip lighting makes even her, and lets not forget she played Helen of Troy, look ugly. But her husband, who you don’t believe for a nanosecond she would look twice at in real life and which therefore put my belief suspending ability really to the test in ways that even New Moon didn’t, is convinced she’s innocent (and actually she is innocent despite me yelling ‘she so did it’ for the first half of the film).

So the husband spends ages drawing scale plans of the prison on his bedroom walls, robs a drug dealer accidentally murdering him in the process, sells everything they own, says a permenant adios to all his family and then breaks the ill-lit Diane out of the prison so they can leg it to San Salvador with bambino in tow.

When the credits roll I turn to John,

‘Would you do that for me?’

He pauses an inordinately long time. I assume this is because he is weighing up whether he would say adios to his record collection for a life on the run with me. I don’t want to know the answer to that one so I hurry on…

‘Well I suppose it’s slightly different. Her husband was convinced of her innocence, whereas you’d probably be convinced of my guilt. For pretty good reason.’

John laughs but he doesn’t argue with me. Hmmmmmmm.

It sparks some debate in my head that night whilst I’m trying to sleep about the things that people will do for love, and all the things you wouldn’t be able to do without someone – metaphorically at least -breaking you out, getting you a fake passport and subbing your escape. I’d better start being nice to John. Never know when I might need him to make that call over the records or me.

However, it occurs to me that whilst John might have nagging doubts over my innocence if I ever got charged with murder, he has on the other hand shown himself to be a pretty cool conspirator in plotting my escape from the strip lighting of number 1 London Bridge. Without his reassurance I’d definitely still be imprisoned / employed. Witness…

‘Are you sure we can do this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you quite sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really, really sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you keep me if it all goes wrong?’

I think he says yes to this. I block out the answer.

So, you see, Diane and I have a lot more in common than just looking the same and fancying Pacey from Dawson’s Creek.

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