Week 29 - Laura - Finally

Finally, my favourite part of today has arrived.

This day has not been a productive one. The first day back in work after a week off, it's been a day of alien alarm calls, a day of cranking the part of my brain that deals with work back into action, a day of winding up what last week had wound down.

Now, however, it's half nine. The commute has been done, twice. Dinner has been made and eaten, dishes washed and put away. Tomorrow's lunch is settling down for the night on the second shelf of the fridge. Flowers have been watered, dry laundry taken in.

Though not enough has been done, my to-do list and I have agreed an overnight ceasefire.

Now I am sitting in my wooden rocking chair on my balcony. The chair needs a proper cushion, but that's a job for another day.

I am eating an ice-cream, a treat even as the evening temperatures drop.

I am looking at my summer flowers, which are clinging on to life and brightening up my 'garden' even at this late stage.

Sean has swapped watching football for playing it tonight, so my soundtrack is Lyric FM rather than Sky Sports. I don't know the piece of music that's playing, but it's the perfect accompaniment to closed eyes, passing cars and alarms distant enough not to be annoying.

I am breathing deeply, revelling in the fact that even unsatisfactory days can include perfect little interludes like this.

Week 28 - Andrew - Driving

- Stop. Pull over.
- I want to close my eyes. Just a blink. One quick, ecstatic blink.
- Just pull the car over. There's a hard shoulder. Set your phone alarm. Twenty minutes.
- No. I can keep going. I'll have some water. That'll wake me up. I'm not sleepy.
- Do you know what you're risking?
- All I can feel is the cloud of sleep hovering between the base of my brain and the top of my spine.
- Think of the road markings slipping under your wheels - the car, crashing through the central divide, and onto the other side.
- I want to sleep.
- DON'T SLEEP.
- Just one blink
- Don't.
- Jesus. That blink was long. Blissful. Like taking a long glass of cool water.
- Stop the car.
- I'll have a strong mint, and shake it off.
- You're travelling at one hundred and twenty kilometers an hour. The people you love most are in this car.
- I'll blast the A/c.
- Just stop the car. Think now. Think of what you would wish as you are waiting, pinned into the driver seat as someone else bleeds out. You'll dream, pray, wish that you could go back to this moment, and pull over.

Week 28 - Laura - Driving

I get into the car before I can change my mind. Telling her I'm her mother will be too much for her to take on now, but she has to know that Matt is her father.

Pulling the seat belt across my still scarred stomach stings almost to the point of tears. “Suck it up,” I whisper, furious with myself. “It’s nothing like the pain Annie’s going to have to face later.”

Thinking of what I have to tell her almost makes me undo the belt and retreat into the safety of Lilac Cottage again. But that’s not an avenue even I can pretend is an option. This time I have to tell her.

Though it hasn't done it in months, my ageing Renault starts on the first turn of the key. Even it seems to know how important this evening’s task is.

As I back out onto the main street the tears start to flow, each one filled with the regrets of the past.

Driving out past Fenton’s farm the memories almost quench my resolve completely. I have to rely on muscle memory to keep changing gears, keep the accelerator pressed and keep this journey going to its inevitable end.

It’s only a ten minute drive to Annie’s. As I drive through her gates a glance at the clock tells me this particularly reluctant journey has only taken two extra minutes on top of that.

It’s 8.29pm and I'm about to turn Annie’s whole world upside down. If there was any other option, I’d choose it now. But I can’t. I unknowingly set this all in train 23 years and nine months ago, and whatever happens, I have to tell Annie the full truth now.

Even more hesitantly than I’d put the seat belt on, I unbuckle it, open the car door and begin the fateful walk to Annie’s door.

Week 27 - Andrew - Deadlines

Worst Andrew,

Hope you are well.

I wanted to write a quick note, just to cover some concerns I have around your historical and current relationship with deadlines. This is the fourth or fifth week that 'Thing a week' has been delivered within the last half hour of the allocated week.

When we began this operation, I took in good faith that your experience as a project manager, and your day-to-day work bringing together complex campaigns for large clients would translate. Sadly, this has not proven to be the case.

Working with you, I've managed to isolate the root cause of the problem - in short, you are an idiot. Saturday mornings, you routinely wake up between 30-90 minutes earlier than your wife. This would be a perfect occasion to write thing a week. You could sit in your bright living room, fizzing with caffeine, and knock out a few hundred words beautifully capturing something meaningful. Instead, you watch the Shield. Vick Mackey isn't going to write your thing a week!

As an alternative, you could wait until late on Friday evening. Once you were a couple of cocktails in, dry martinis with flakes of ice, just Hunter S. Thompson your way through a blast of keyboard chatter. Instead, you watch Youtube music videos until you fall asleep.

This week, I'm confident that I'll receive yet another 'word count wonder'. Can we schedule a call for later this week to make sure that you are clear on the opportunities available to you.

Regards,
Better Andrew

PS - 20 mins a day on a train. You could jot down a few ideas? nope - you watch the shield on your phone.
PPS - We still need to have the weight loss conversation. I'm aware you're ignoring my emails.
PPPS - My solicitor is now managing conversations regarding your responsibilities around 10K running.

Week 27 - Laura - deadlines

I wasn't always good with deadlines. In effect I gave my very first one - my own due date - the two fingers by showing up two weeks later.

I cottoned on to the concept of working to a set schedule pretty quickly though, and despite (or perhaps as a result of) setting reminders on my phone for stuff as simple as putting on a wash, I'm now both used to, and pretty good at, deadlines.

I've managed to comply with a bunch of not unusual life ones already - getting the CAO form filled in on time, sorting out a working holiday visa for Australia before I got too old, arriving at nightclubs minutes before having to pay, applying for jobs before the closing date, making it into work for 9.30am every day...

As a journalist I work to a weekly deadline - 3.30pm every Thursday. It mostly works out fine.

My strangest deadline to date has been set for January 16 next.

That’s when Mario* is scheduled for arrival.

Of course, if he’s anything like me, he mightn't bother showing up in January at all.

Which could be a good thing, if he fancies celebrating his birthday in the future. If he has a mid-January birthday no doubt half the friends he’ll invite to the party won’t come because they’ll be getting by on noodles until pay day, and the ones who do won’t be up for birthday cake thanks to pesky New Year diets. Although on the other hand I’ve a feeling any person I’ve had a hand in making will be pretty persuasive. And will probably have more than one party per birthday, which could eliminate the whole pay day problem.

Anyway, January 16, there or thereabouts, is the deadline for when - all being healthy - I stop being responsible for just me and start being responsible for another, little, helpless person.

Me, who once - temporarily forgetting that eggs existed - hazarded a guess that farmers kept hens for their feathers. Me, who in a childhood essay advocated marrying a very old, very ill, very rich man. Me, who spent much of my twenties thoroughly testing my capacity for alcohol. Me, who sometimes picks mould off bread and toasts it (the bread, not the mould). Me, who doesn’t have a pension. Me, who has to go through a ‘phone, keys, wallet, lip balm’ check-list just to leave my own house.

I hope he’s not expecting a particularly sensible upbringing. Or even a particularly organised one.

On the other hand I’m pretty good at Lego. I can make basic train/airplane noises. I’m ok with singing songs in cars on long journeys, once they weren’t originally sung by a purple dinosaur or his friends. I’m cool with reading lots of books and watching some daytime tv. I’ll be a great partner-in-crime when it comes to being messy. And once he can talk and ask Sean if we can get a puppy I’ll be right behind him saying ‘Yeah, can we Sean, please?’.

It’s going to be a lot of fun.

*not his actual name

Week 26 - Andrew - Kissing

HUMAN MALE MANUAL

Chp 2 EXTR 1

KISSING

Under normal functionality, you can expect the following KISS settings from your human. Variant settings below.

Kiss from your human’s mother

Kiss from your human’s father

Kiss from your human’s best friend when human is a child

Kiss from your human’s  mother (Human may experience embarrassment ages 6-18)

Kiss from your father (again, Human may experience embarrassment ages 6-18. Expect phrases such as: ‘Get off, god!’)

Your human will recognise that friends are kissing girls? For real?

First Kiss (That your human will tell friends about)

First Kiss (Previous case will not involve kissing, this will be first actual kiss)

Kissing someone your human really fancies.

Kissing someone who really fancies your human.

Not kissing someone your human love with the heart-searing pain that only your human understands. (Your human and Radiohead. God, unrequited love at 16 is intense!)

Kissing someone your human doesn’t fancy.

Kissing someone your human doesn’t like.

Kissing someone who makes your human not like themselves. (NOT RECOMMENDED)

Drunk Kissing.

Drunk Kissing 2: Your human reeks of cigarettes

Drunk Kissing Redux: Mystery aftertaste. Your human will experience the following aftertastes: curry, vomit, taco Fries, bacardi breezer)

Bad Kissing

Good Kissing

The Kiss that changes everything

Your Human may Kiss the Bride

NOTE, The following exceptions apply:

If your human is SEAL:

Kiss from a Rose.

If your human is in the Mafia:

Kiss of Death

If your human is Gene Simmons:

KISS

Week 26 - Laura - kissing

I HATE kissing.

It’s as disgusting as cabbage.

It’s as horrid as losing when Henry Hopkins is on the other football team.

It’s as horrible as school.

I hate kissing so much I’d prefer to do my sister Emily’s chores as well as mine.

I’d rather brush my teeth the whole day long.

I’d even like homework at the weekend more.

All kisses are yucky, but some are worse than others.

My Aunt Vera’s kisses are really gross. Something must be wrong with her mouth, because every time she kisses me she leaves some of her big red lips behind on my face.

Uncle Ivan’s kisses are revolting too. They’re kind of….squelchy. Every time he kisses me he leaves about a gallon of saliva on my cheek and I have to wipe it off with my sleeve when he’s not looking.

My big sister told me people who really like each other kiss with their tongues as well as their lips.

I'm not sure if she’s messing, but if anyone ever puts their tongue in my mouth I’ll bite it off.

The only kisses I like are the ones my Mam gives me on my forehead when I'm sick in bed and she brings me ice cream.

If I really like someone when I grow up they will only be allowed to kiss me on the forehead. And only then if they bring me mint chocolate chip ice cream.

That’s the rule.

Because kissing is gross!