My legs ache. It’s the sort of ache that begins to feel good as it wears off. It’s similar to when I used to run - I would get home, and feel like hell, but an hour later this glow would spread from every joint. I spent eight hours standing behind a counter in a supermarket’s meat department today, and aside from being paid money I also earned myself a pair of sore calf muscles.

The money is really the thing. I don’t want to spend any extended period of time working in a supermarket’s meat department, but I’m at a point where the lifestyle I want to sustain - one where I have a cellphone, and can buy myself the occasional video game, and go out to restaurants every now and then - is unsustainable without regular income. And all of this is in a country that effectively hamstrings you if you don’t have a car and a driver’s license, and I don’t have either, yet.

It balances out, though, I know that. The work becomes easier - not because it changes, but because you do - your legs toughen up, and you learn the shortcuts, and your rapport with the people around you improves. And I’m at a point where it’s too early to reap the rewards - I won’t be paid for a little while longer, so for now there’s a sort of void to the work. That’s not to say I’m not grateful for the job - I am - but you’d have to be insane to do something like this for free.

I’ll keep moving forward. I’ll try and be an adult. I will, at least temporarily, abandon the ingrained elitism that tries to tell me that because I have a degree, I deserve a job where I can sit down. While I serve sirloin tips to wealthy suburbanites, I’ll try and move my life forward in a thousand small ways.

On Arriving At Four Months In America, Here Is Where My Head Is

It’s hard to turn your gaze inward, sometimes. America is not a country that encourages introspection - self-realisation, sure, but that assumes that everyone already knows the self they want to be. I am a little lost on that front. There are words you could throw at me, and some of them would stick. Writer is the most obvious one, but in terms of the things I write it’s hard to parlay that it into a career.

The thing I’m writing at the moment - or planning to write, at least - is teetering on a precipice at the moment where I’ll either rush headlong into the process or consider the whole lot unimaginably shit and never look at it again. I have done both before. I’m still not sure where this one will end up. It seems fun, but I’m not sure if it’s that intelligent - or, rather, has the potential to become so. All of my ideas start out stupid at their core. The complexity comes later on.

In terms of forward momentum, writing is all I have right now. I am paralyzed by bureaucracy, waiting on my work permit, which also happens to be my proof of eligibility for just about anything (including a learner’s permit, meaning I’m currently unable to drive). That’ll hopefully arrive soon, though it could be another two months. Being able to sit down and scribble a few words here and there is small consolation, but it’s something.

Earlier today, I wrote something altogether more methodical, mostly focusing on the external, casting what started out as a wry glance at America, only for it to morph into something altogether more bitter. I am, by my nature, an anxious person, and that’s why I ended up deleting the whole thing; my anxiety about all of this, this forcibly slow settling period, was starting to bleed into my attitudes. When I clear my head, I see things for how they are - not perfect, but not the dire state of affairs that I sometimes my convince myself is the case.

I am two months married. I am four months emigrated. I am learning different ways to live. On January 11th, I threw a few dozen balls in the air, and I’m just beginning to see them falling back to earth.

2014-02-28

First the dull stuff: a few changes to the way this website looks. (Yes, I know that most of you are reading this via the Tumblr dashboard. You should have a look. It’s really rather pretty.)

This is the most obvious one: after a very long time sticking to my Tumblr URL, I’ve gone back to the address I started using back in 2008. I’m not sure why. Lack of shame, maybe - I don’t think there’s anything here that’s too incriminating. Still strange that family members are reading this, but I was never really going to be posting nudes. So we’re okay.

This is the new navigation bar (you can probably also make out that I’ve expanded the title from “Chris” to my full name, too - call it brand consistency, or call it the fact that it fits nicely with the links underneath). If you click the first link, you’ll be taken to the preview page for my new book (and - need I remind you again - you can sign up for updates about that here). The second goes to a redesigned version of the old page, where you can buy my last book for real Earth currency. The next two are tag pages, and the rest sort of speak for themselves.

Finally, there’s this - a few social links. In particular, that third one links to my Pinboard bookmarks, which I intend to make more use of in the coming months. There is so much to look at out there. It’s not all Buzzfeed listicles and videos of dogs being stupid and blog posts about the tech industry.

Soon after I got here, there were a couple of blizzards. We got caught in the second, after a meal at a family friend’s house. It was one of those experiences that was entirely new - we were shovelling snow so we could get the car to make the short journey home, and every yard felt perilous in a sort of slapstick way. There’s no real threat when you’re driving five miles an hour, but it’s still thrilling when you experience it for the first time. At the time, though, after a couple of glasses of wine and packed into a car with five other people, it was a ridiculous reminder that at the age of twenty-three I still have plenty of first times left.

This is all small stuff, of course. I’m getting married on Saturday. That’s so close. The nervousness keeps rendering me inarticulate, to the point where I’m sure I’ll look back on this and see it as a bit stilted and weird-sounding. But I’m excited. And happy. And nervous. Really nervous.

I got to see my family yesterday - they’re here for the week, though I won’t be seeing them that much due to all the other things currently swirling around Arden and I. It was a fairly cathartic experience. I didn’t share Arden’s terror of disappointing them, but it was still the first time that I’d encountered the confluence of those two different worlds - the people I’ve left behind, and the people with whom I now live. There’s a little strangeness in that. I think we all came out of it feeling good, though. I certainly did.

There are bursts of feeling, but there’s also a certain amount of numbness. I can be very good at planning things, as long as there’s limited emotional engagement - if I let myself worry about outcomes, or get anxious about the weight of it all, everything I need to do just sits there, undone. There are weeks to go until I really reach anything approaching a sense of completion regarding settling in this country.

It’s not depression, though. I don’t know about whether or not the potential’s there - how I’d feel if I had the mental space to really practise any degree of introspection - but it’s more like a flurry of activities replacing the regular beats that I might otherwise be feeling. I still prefer this to what came before. My worst moments with Arden are better than a lot of my average moments in the UK.

I’m excited to wear my suit. I’m looking forward to reading my vows, and eating cupcakes, and meeting the remainder of Arden’s friends. I’m excited for that first night, when we close the door and we’re by ourselves after a day of socialising and look at each other as a married couple, with no external distractions, for the first time. I can’t wait for that fact to sink in. I’m already navigating the contours of the feeling, and it seems heavy, but in the sense of a reassuring weight - the kind that feels like an anchor, rather than cinderblocks tied to your feet. Another reminder that I’ve made it home.

And then: half a dozen places where Arden will have to change her name¹; a green card application to assemble and submit; an ebook to format and publish; a whole future with no limits stretching out in front of us. That’s quite something.

There. A glimmer of something - excitement, maybe, or just air blowing past the embers of my imagination. This feels good. Lately, it’s those flickers that I have to look forward to. Soon, I’ll have room to stoke it into something bigger.

—

^{1. Addressing the vocal minority who might attempt to accuse Arden by proxy of being a “bad feminist” for taking my name: it was entirely her choice, and borne out of the fact that she has little attachment to her current surname (and a fair amount of attachment to mine). So shush. I have seen that wrinkled nose too many times by now from people who judge before they assess context, and they should know better. Also, ARF is a cool set of initials. It’s one more excuse to roleplay as sea lions.↩}

Check your lapel

So hard to articulate everything happening to me at the moment. In a little over a week, I will be married. That’s such an insane and beautiful concept that part of my brain has decided to shut down rather than fully process it. I feel like I’m floating, still.

Starting with the creative front, because that’s easy to talk about: Dystopolis is finished. You can find a synopsis here (along with the lovely opinions of a couple of lovely people) and sign up for release updates here, and I absolutely, definitely recommend that you do. I’ll also apologise in advance, because I intend to plug the hell out of this book. It’s the culmination of nearly three years of work, and I want as many people as possible to read it. On which note, if you’re a person who makes things and has released them into the wild (preferably writing, not industrial machinery, but creative things in general are good), I’m happy to give out review copies for free to anyone who’s willing to volunteer one.

Comments - positive or otherwise - are my bread and butter in terms of promoting this book. I’ve been doing all of this without the backing of an industry - no publishers, no agents, just my own know-how and a core team of wonderful editors - and as such I don’t have the same marketing machine that other books have. Every reblog helps. Or something like that.

Also, a quick note on release schedules - I’m hoping to publish it early in March, in both print and digital formats. It’ll start on Amazon, and spread from there to people who have other devices. You’ll also get a free digital copy if you buy the paperback, because fuck publishers who try to make you pay for the same product twice. (In the interest of exclusivity-related promotions on Amazon, I might wait a little while before openly publishing a multi-platform ebook edition à la this one, but it’ll be available on everything eventually.)

I’m also aiming to record an audiobook version of this one, and that’ll be distributed through Bandcamp; I have no idea what the ETA is on that, though, because it involves recording a 153-page manuscript. That sort of thing takes time. But no doubt I’ll be screaming about it at the time.

This barely touches my life at the moment, though. I’ve been planning a wedding, and that involves so much more than you initially think. Last night, we decided on our entrance music (Interlude - Gymnopedie No. 1 by Anamanaguchi), but there have also been decisions about food (New England clam chowder; butter poached lobster served with biscuits and asparagus tips; turkey pot pies; roasted chicken in a porcini cream sauce with fetuccine, peas and corn; a fucking tier of cupcakes), decorations (purple), flowers (also purple), guests (mostly family and Arden’s friends), playlists (as yet undecided), vows (sentimental), the justice of the peace (a very intuitive lady) and an ever-growing catalogue of things to take care of.

There’s also the fact that in the moments in between, I’ve been trying to settle in this new country; I have a bank account now, but no debit card or means of looking at my balance short of visiting a branch (though I should add that this isn’t a problem; I’m just impatient). I have a state ID, where my pre-haircut head looks twice its usual size. I have a social security number, albeit on a card that has the words VALID FOR WORK ONLY WITH DHS AUTHORIZATION stamped above it, because god forbid I actually be considered a viable taxpayer. I even registered with Selective Service, effectively consenting to conscription, even though something like that is meaningless; if the US ever tried to bring in a draft, the first thing I’d do is flee the country. Unless it was a war made entirely of donut bullets. Or the sort of fight where it’s over when you pull a flag out of your opponent’s pants. I’d go for that.

This all sounds overwhelming, and it is, but I’m also wonderfully, ecstatically happy. Being constantly alert to new things, as I have been, brings with it a certain level of stress that I’m unaccustomed to, but it’s all surface-level chatter. At the root, I’m smiling. I feel ready to face anything, and that’s a relief - because I have so much more to face.

2014-01-21

So. As I said earlier, I am here. Elements are starting to sink in, but currently everything feels a little dreamlike. They might stay like this for a while. Living with Arden is an everyday joy, regardless of the micro-stresses and anxieties that sometimes populate the time we spend together. I look at her, and think that I’ll never get tired of waking up in the same bed. I’m bringing memories, but they already feel a little dissociated, more like a former life than the recent past.

Since I arrived, I can’t claim to have been doing much that’s productive. I started playing Persona 3, my first JRPG (discounting Pokémon, as I’m apparently supposed to do), and have already sunk a dozen or so hours into it. I accompanied Arden on the way to get her wedding dress, which looks beautiful on her. I haven’t eaten enough vegetables. There is a simplicity to living at the moment that I want to savour while it lasts.

A blizzard is supposed to make its way through Massachusetts this week, and I suspect that the foot of snow outside the front door might be what convinces me that yes, I have moved to another country, rather than just teleported to another house. I want to watch the snow fall, to see the insane New England weather, to hold my fiancé while the weather rages outside. I am starting to regain my presence. My ability to contemplate is creeping back, thought by thought. Time to absorb the realities of a new life.