I've found my home

may you live in interesting times

"May you live in interesting times" - this is a curse, it can not be meant in any other way.

It is Thursday afternoon, I have arrived home, wrapped her birthday presents and am attempting to write a blog post. I get halfway through and decided to save as a draft - you know, in case I lose it. I hit save and the computer goes "phnuked". Arse! I have lost the post. Just as I build up enough steam to get a good "swear on" going, the phone rings. We have a phone that you can walk about with when you talk. After using it I will put it back in its holder. Maria has a tendency (and I love her for it) of dropping the phone under the nearest thing when she finishes talking. I frantically search the flat for the phone, finding it under the bed.

Me: yellow!

Maria: So you aren't covered in sticky tape then? *

Me: Nope, I was trying to find the phone.

Maria: Oh you love me don't you.

Me: Always and forever.

Maria: What are you doing?

Me: Well, I'm about to swear a lot.

Maria: Why?

Me: Just written a post, tried to save it and....

Maria: Oh, I'm sorry. But you might want to write something else.

Me: Anything else - I hate trying to re-write posts. What should I write about?

Maria: I've just been fired.

Me:

Maria: We've just had a meeting in the canteen. Tomorrow [Friday} we will be paid our Christmas Bonus. Then on Monday we will be given our severance pay. If we want, we can sign on to a temp agency and continue our jobs. But I don't want to.

Me:

Maria: You aren't saying anything.

Me: I love you

Maria: You aren't saying anything useful.

Me: Look, can I have five minutes to digest this? Can I pick you up from work and we can go to a bar. I need to look at you. I need to listen to you. I need to look at you. I don't want to say anything that will be wrong. I need to look at you.

Maria: Oh god.

Me: Don't "oh god" me. I just don't want to say the wrong thing without thinking. You know me. I like to think.

Maria: I love you

Me: I know. I love you to but...I need to think.

Maria: Pick me up at five.

Me: I will. I love you.

Maria: I love you. Bye.

Today is her last day at work. She will collect her pay on Monday and not go back. I know that some of you will be thinking "oh shit" but I have two things to say to you:

1) She hates her job. She wants out. She gets out and she gets some money.

b) We have two weeks together. I get two weeks over the Christmas period off school and she will now be home. We will be together.

We are not in this for the money - we are in this for time together. This is good news.

Might not be getting that 42 inch plasma screen tv and a PS3 bed for Christmas but I will be getting Maria for two whole weeks together. What could be better?

*this is a reference to the fact that I had just been wrapping her birthday presents. Cultural difference number 76 (or it may just be me): Mexicans like to wrap presents with great care and delight in using the smallest, tiniest piece of sticky tape to finish the job. Wrapping is a thing of beauty to them. Me, I like to use a whole roll of tape and wonder why add the expense of expensive wrapping paper. Just tear into that present! And the sticky tape slows down the whole process of tearing! Thus delaying the final reveal!

speed blogging

breath deep, read fast

monday - appointment to see La Directore to tell her that the whole of her school stinks at maths and that there has to be a better way to teach it and I know the answer gets cancelled because La Directore is on holiday for a week. break-time (recess to you) is spent fighting off the latest craze in school "touch mr. kay's hair it feels so soft, like feathers".

tuesday - she has a job interview so I dash from work and sit outside a medical company planning lessons for october all the time sending "negative" vibes at the factory - oh, I want her to get a job, I'll support her in anything but do I want her to get this job? no fucking way because she'd leave at 6 and return after 7 we would be apart for 13 hours and I don't want that.

wednesday - she has a job interview so I dash from work and sit outside sanyo grading the students for the month of september and for the first time in a long, long time I feel scared - frightened to be sat in a car in a foreign country, constantly surrounded by people walking round the car, looking in at "the foreign bloke" and laughing and joking at his expense. I come home and write her a letter, a letter that she can use to get the job at the medical place - I might not want her to have the job but I love her and will support her in her decisions. We go for tacos at our favourite place (for tacos).

thursday - I return all the students' maths exams and no-one cries, in fact they are very happy with their grades. Whereas I was slightly disappointed with the results, they are ecstatic - it appears they all feel they have finally understood a maths exam and have a certain sense of satisfaction with what they have done. At the end of one lesson I am confronted by a 12 year old girl who waits until the room is empty to tell me "thank you mr. kay. I have never passed a maths exam before, I have never liked maths lessons but with you...well, thank you". I manage to hold back my tears and suddenly become mexican - I kiss her and hug her (normal behaviour for a mexican teacher).

friday - we are supposed to be going to a party with maria's co-workers but (and this is a big butt) there is something that bugs me about the guy holding the party. I have managed to stay quiet about my feelings (when I say quiet, I have only let through 17 bitter and twisted comments) but the guy let's slip his whole feelings about maria - he tries to encourage her to lie to me (invites her out to look at beds and asks her to tell me that they went on the internet). Alarm bells ring in maria's head and then, with immaculate timing, we get an invite somewhere else. Efrain and Ilyana and wonderful, the evening is brilliant. I cry. I cry tears of laughter at one stage - not because of the mouse that we spend an hour chasing round the house while Ilyana "dances", not because of the fantastic company, not because of the copious amounts of alcohol but because of a story about a fire extinguisher. Please, add to your "things to do before I die" list - listen to Efrain tell his fire extinguisher story. We get home at 3am.

saturday - we wake and phone the kids to tell them to pack their swimming stuff, we are spending a day at the beach, to be told - they aren't coming YET. Nikos is sick and Danny is feeling rough. Sheffield United continue to lose - it will be a long season. We eventually get the kids, pick up films from blockbuster and spend the day watching "Robots", "in her shoes", "wallace and grommit", "pinky and the brain" with the volume turned up as danny throws up in the background. The kids gone, we settle down to watch "Fletch" and maria falls asleep.

sunday - we get up and charge across the border before the queues form. We go round Target for stuff we need and then head 60 miles north to san clemente. This is "our" place - at the end of the pier I proposed to maria. We eat good food, we laugh, we talk - we walk, we kiss. We go home and watch "V for Vendetta".

monday - La Directore needs a day (or two) to recover from her holiday and so my appointment is put further back. I get home to discover that the electricity bill that was paid on thursday hadn't "gone through" (I could write several posts on mexican banking) and so we have been cut off. We pay the re-connection charge which means that when we get home maria "reconnects" us - using a hacksaw and a pair of pliers!

tuesday - no La Directore but I have one of those days that ends in 30 tonnes of marking (bad move) but I do manage to find ten minutes to write a post (eventually) - enjoy.

getting it out of your system

Did I mention I had an interview? Have I mentioned they offered me a job? Do I need to mention that they love me? Actually I might need to mention the last point and sort of explain it a bit deeper because it is not a case of *they* love me - she adores me.

Maria was convinced, seriously convinced that I would get a job as soon as I put my head above the parapets. Me, well, I wasn't so sure. A total lack of Spanish (apart for dos, tequila, por and favor), no knowledge of Mexican history and a complete space in my learning when it comes to world geography (that means if you ever play Trivial Pursuit with me you now know to ask me a geog question when I get to the middle) so I'm not too sure where Mexico is, never mind what the hell is in Mexico. I wasn't convinced that a headteacher would look at me and go:

Wow, you are the very person we have been looking for! Please will you come and work at my school. There are no vacancies at the moment and there won't be until September. However, just so that you can get through to September would you like to run an after school club, couple of hours a day, pay you 300 pesos an hour (that's 30 dollars to you and 15 great british pounds sterling to you), you know, as a sort of retainer. Then we can get you on a full timetable in September. Would you like to be Head of Maths or Head of English?

Last week I dropped a couple of CVs off at schools. One was the school that Maria's children go to, we knew there would be no chance of a job there. One school was where a friend of Maria's children go. They have a foreign teacher there and he hasn't been very good at turning up for work every day. Dropped one off at a school called London Bridge because we had heard that they employed foreigners. While looking for the address of London Bridge in the yellow pages I noticed an advert for the Anglo American School. Maria noticed it was nearby, so we dropped a CV off with the receptionist. She told us that they had a full compliment of teachers but she would pass it on to La Directore. Three days later (that includes the weekend) I received an email.

I have heard the term Anglophile, I know the term Anglophile, I now realise that I don't understand the term Anglophile. I have a job. Not only do I have a job but tomorrow I have been invited round to an open house party to say goodbye to La Directore's daughter who is returning to university in America.

The problem is I am now living with a woman who insists on wandering round the house singing under her breath "She l-u-r-v-e-s you, she w-h-a-r-n-t-s you" and then giggling (and I would like to say insanely but there is a chance she reads this so I will say) in a a totally rational way. You see, I have an inbox of emails from La Directore who has many. many ideas how best to utilise me (and those of you with mucky minds can stop thinking whatever you are thinking just because I typed the word utilise - and I mainly talking to Maria). In 2007 the school were going to perform The Lion King as their bi-annual play. However, not La Directore has read my CV (did I mention that she writes poems and loves classical music) she would like to collaborate (did I mention that I have written two plays that have been performed) on a writing venture (did I mention that my girlfriend fell in love with me because of my writing) and then we can produce and direct (did I mention that I have produced and directed 14 plays) a play which she has named A History of England in Words and Music (did I mention that she is fucking nuts).

Tomorrow Maria and I are attending an open house party (well I say we are but at the moment La Directore has gone quiet and we don't have an address). For several years Maria was seen as an appendage to her husband: she was the pretty, intelligent, witty, tall woman who stood beside her husband. She was not a person, she was something that her husband had - nice house, nice car, nice wife. I promised that was never going to be our relationship. We were a team, we bowed to no-one's opinion, I love her, she loves me, the rest of you can either accept it or fuck off, we don't care whether you like one of us and not the other, we don't conform to your rules. We have left blood on walls, we have walked through people, we have walked over people, we are here. We really, really don't care what you think.

And I believe this. I really, really, really believe this. I am just not sure that the first question Maria should ask La Directore is:

So, did you cum when you read his CV?

I think we should get the giggly moments over and done with before tomorrow.

gotcha

short version
interview starts at 9am
they offer me the job at 9.05
we talk a bit more
I want to start in september
they want me to start at the beginning of this week (three days ago)
we reach an agreement
I start in january
depending on the visa
ooooo, I'm almost legal

start reading your spam

I use a gmail address which has an inbuilt spam filter. It is a very efficient spam filter. Every third day I clear out 100 emails from my spam box - I get so much spam that you'd think someone has a grudge against me and sold my address on ebay for 1p. Once every two weeks a piece of spam gets through the filter and turns up in my inbox. I know it is spam because I read the subject line and then get the first 9/10 words of the email. I read the title, move the mouse over the *check* box beside it, click on the box, insert a green tick and then hit delete.

This morning I opened one of my inboxs to discover an email offering me the chance to study at some university. I didn't read it, checked the subject, read six words, hit delete. Moved on to my other inbox where there were four emails. One of them had the subject title "Interview". Without thinking my mouse moved and hovered over the check box. As my eyes read the first 9 words my right index finger clicked on the mouse. My mind started to puzzle over the first 9 words, there was something strange about them:

I would like to thank you for your visit

As the mouse moved towards the delete button my brain suddenly screamed out in panic STOP. Instead of deleting the email I opened it. I have an interview on Thursday morning at a school. The school is used to employing foreigners. They are used to organising working visas, assisting them with placements and settling into the job. Oddly enough (for a school) they are not used to qualified teachers applying for jobs. Normally they accept anyone who can speak English and then hope they do a good job. When I handed my CV over they got a bit excited. When they saw that my specialty was maths they got very excited.
I have an interview on Thursday. Good job I have a pair of shoes!

coming out the closet

Obviously most of you think that we are living the idylic life. Here we are in Mexico, in love, together, in our flat with the door closed. There is a possibility that you can believe we are on an extended honeymoon. On the front door of the flat we have hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign, there is a pile of newspapers and rows of milk bottles line up down the stairs to our *love nest*. Inside the flat the fridge is full champagne, the freezer full of expensive ice cream, the hot tub is bubbling away nicely and fresh rose petals have been sprinkled on the bed. Like fuck.

We are together. We are in love. However, we have not spent years saving for this moment, no-one's parents chipped in to help the happy couple and we forgot to issue a "getting-together" list at IKEA. We are skint, broke, scrapping the barrel, on skid row. As much as we would love to spend the rest of our lives together, in each other's arms, we have to eat. Each morning we go through the same routine. Get up, get dressed, get up the road, buy two newspapers. Back home the newspapers are separated into their sections. Maria takes the jobs sections, I take the sports sections. I read my way through the latest reports written in Spanish, occasionally asking the odd word but we are both surprised how good my understanding of written Spanish is. It helps that it as a topic I understand. Maria searches through the jobs, finding the ones she is qualified for and then sending off emails with her resume attached.

Monday was a good day. She sent out four emails and then found an advert that she passed to me. "Wanted - English Teachers." A quick check on the internet reveals a company that teaches English via lessons that contain NO Spanish. Better yet, most of the teaching is done by acting out scenarios - hell, I'm perfect for this! I only speak English and I have a huge drama background plus I can act the idiot.

Tuesday got better. We wake, the computer gets switched on, email gets checked and Maria gets invited to two interviews and I get invited to one. And this, gentle reader, is where we differ - you see, you want to hear about the interviews. You want to know how Maria dazzled the interviewers to the stage where they were offering her jobs she isn't qualified to do. You want to hear about how I answered the question "Describe your legal status in this country" with the line "I'm an illegal immigrant" (oh, how we laughed about that). But I don't want to tell you about the interviews. I want to tell you about the moment.

Once the emails had been read, panic ensued. Pyjamas thrown off, the shower dived into, shaving and ex-foliating done. The one tiny mirror fought over as eyebrows (mine and hers) are tamed. Then the closet door is thrown open. What to wear, what to wear. I go with the green suit trousers and a button down green shirt. Maria goes with *killer* black pants and a black blouse. We check each other out - looking good! Then our eyes drop to the floor of the closet and the 274 pairs of shoes that are there. Four of the pairs I know intimately, my silver trainers, my blue trainers, my white trainers and my one pair of shoes. The other 270 pairs of shoes belong to the love of my life. She looks, pauses, turns to me and her voice breaks as she whispers in horror:

"I have no interview shoes!"

I do :^)