I am now a HANDMASTER!

Yup, just got handfasted, and am loving every second of it.
The ceremony went off without a hitch, even when the community service warden wandered over and asked us what we were doing...it was just perfect. Ellie was stunning, and everyone had a great time. It was perfect. We got to meet most of our friends on and off throughout the day, people coming and go, which I think was a lot better than trying to cope with everyone at once!
Ayva tried to be center of attention in the ceremony, again! But i was great, and I'm hoping to have some photos up real soon.
Other than that, I finally heard from my god-mother on th net...I'm annoyed because me letters aren't getting through and I wanted to keep them updated! Other than that, we are all happy, and having a great time.
I'll be back soon, but until then, you take care of yourselves!
-2009

Ties that bind

Well, the time is getting closer, and I have to admit I'm getting pretty nervous.
Ellie and I are set to get handfasted on the first of May, in front of her friends and family; and from then on we are bound. I've had to explain it to a few friends, but ceremony is simply this:

A swearing of love and fatihfulness to each other. Nothing less than a marriage.
In every way but legally we are getting married.
In a year's time, we are going to take our bearings and if we are still together and willing to be together, we will hold a proper christian ceremony to satisfy the law, her family and mine. But that isn't what's important - the fact is we are swearing to each other, and declaring our love and partnership to the world - Marriage in all but legal documentation.

It's strange and rather horrible to find just how hard it is to actually get married; even getting married in the registry office (a bleak, horrible little place where the plants are plastic and the chairs are bolted down so no one steals them!) costs hundreds of pounds. It's silly and it's stupid, but getting married and being in love apparently costs money.

In a world where love costs money are we all anything more than whores?

In other news, the votes are being cast in South Africa today - I know how it will go, the ANC will come out on top, but the question remains; will they actually do what they promised? Obama, oddly enough, seems to be making some of the waves that he promised - even the CIA are getting pissed at him; claiming that without torturing suspects (note the word: SUSPECTS) they cannot protect their country. They have cited, and get this: JACK BAUER as a case in point. The FICTIONAL hero from 24 is their example and excuse for slamming suspect's heads against walls and for using such extreme tortures as waterboarding and worse.
...But hell, it wouldn't be politics if it wasn't dirty, right?

Anyway, on my way again, see you all soon!

Well, on my way...

Finally got over the horro that was the LONG WEEKEND!
A fun time for others, but a nightmare for those who have to serve drnks to the holiday-makers. Had my one day off a week and I'm enjoying it; I got out to town, lazed around a bit and bought a few books; one of which was 50 places to go BEFORE YOU DIE (THE CLOCK OF TIME IS TICKING AWAY, HURRY HURRY HURRY!)
I've been to two of the places so far, so I'm not doing too badly...!
Other than that I am working on some art...again! THis time in a game; I hope to post the first efforts of my experriment soon. I should have the internet soon as well....after a 48 hour background check, DNA, stool and blood sample and an hour's long interrogation (only two of those five are exaggerations, folks!!) for our lovely Kingston Communications, the ONLY broadband provider I am allowed to have.
But MONOPOLY is such a nasty word, isn't it?
Well, I hope to be connected soon, i will just take a little time...and effort.

In other news, my cousin Jack (from Ellie's side) is visitin the Ellie-mum, so I have become his new best friend. He's seven so we've been blowing up buildings, bombing innocent civilians, and making Death Soup out of our enemies...all his idea, not mine! He is jsut so happy to have another boy in the family that he as grown attatched to me...as for me, it's nice to finally have someone of my mental level to talk to! :D

No other news...apart from work still sucking; I can actually feel myself getting dumber the more I work there...the monotony of the days is sapping any purpose I have left in me - I must work to live and live to work.

-Oh yeah! New news! Ellie will be crashing at mine for a while as she tries to find her feet. I know, I know, on of the conditions of us going out was not living together, but I feel that I am confident enough in this relationship that if she does so tugging on my strings a little too much I'll be able to sweetly tell her to bugger off. I hope this isn't a big mistake; but there is only one way to find out!

Keep you all posted!
Chaz

Time is a resource and an Enemy!

My time is short, so I must keep this brief.
I'm sorry for being so succinct in my posts recently; the days and weeks seem to trickle and then fly by. I have had Ellie with me at most times, and we are ahppy, but it does mean that I have very little time for anything else - my life is made up of the odd moments that I can scrape together, between work, paying bills, and seeing my fiancee.

In major news, work sucks.
In less major news, I have found my mother and gotten into contact with her; she even has her own blog, so I can keep in touch with her through that. I hope things go well with her, but it is a lot of lost time between us, and many years to make up for.

Other news: Ellie and I are holding another handfasting ceremony; a much more public one, in Hull on the first of May. Mayday. It will be in the nice little graveyard just off of springbank west, and I hope that anyone who reads this would like to come.
I have had a lot to think about recently, but little time to think in. I miss my friends, and I miss my spare time. I hope to see you all and hear from you all again soon!

Shevek

A wek has gone bye!!

Yes, I know, I know, no updates in a week!
So sorry guys, but I will have a story and a half to tell you all just as soon as I get a moment - hopfully later tonight! Life has been oh so busy, but oh so worth it, and I can't wait to update you all!
See you all soon!
:D

(PS, the missus is watching me type, so I must keep this brief!)

Another Perfect Day

Another day, another choice, and my perceptions of things have swung around again.

I have, it seems, become a better person because of the things I have done. Or so I've been told, anyway. My life seems to be completely changed by the choices I have made, especially the ones I have made recently, but some things will irrevocably remain the same. Ellie, it seems, will always be Ellie, both good and bad, and I will always have the same old hang ups that I have always done.

But lets see, enough cryptic comments and on with the updates.
Yesterday was a good time; I got to see Ayva for a little while before Ellie went to work, and I even got to walk her all the way into town. After spending copious amounts of money on our romantic night in (broke once more, gah!) I wandered back home and got on with some animation - car animation to be precise. Yay, boring facts and figures once again!
But I'm glad I have the time to finish off these projects!

Got to meet up with Gathan yesterday as well, had a few drinks and talked crap for two hours; about politics, politicians, and the world order. He also seemed shocked by my choice to get engaged to Ellie, and laughed about it for quite a while. He hasn't changed, and I wonder how he'd feel if Kim wanted to get married. After meeting him I finally managed to hunt down some stuffed peppers for Ellie, then picked her up from work. We passed Jess on the way home, but she seemed quiet and withdrawn and did everything short of running in the other direction - to be honest, I didn't even notice her until Ellie pointed her out to me.
Hooray for sordid pasts and background history. I'm not sure what would make her uncomfortable around me, but there are more than a few rumors floating around that might have made her feel uncomfortable.

I had begun to take such horrible histories in my stride, accepting them as a by-product of being social and having friends. It is only recently that I have learned that such "Coronation Street" dramas only take place amongst certain people, back stabbers and rumor-spreaders. Hanging out with my old friends in Redhill, and even a choice few in Hull made me remember that not everyone is like that - that friendship does not have to come with such a high price.

But such things are in the past, and so we move on.

Ellie and I got home, but she was too exhausted and cold to enjoy herself. The movies I bought for her (Breakfast at Tiffany's and Pride and Prejudice GAH!) remain untouched and unwatched. The wine I bought, too, remains untouched, and the stuffed peppers were eaten, for the most part, by yours truly. I never seem to get dates with Ellie right - either the movie is terrible, or she feels ill, or I feel surly, or the weather works against us...but it has been a very long time since we have had a date that I can remember being good.
Just another thing to work on, I suppose.
I slept uneasily last night, with strange, violent, vivid dreams of ghosts, of children covered with pins, nails, and thumbtacs, of a bleeding hole in a wall, and of hell arriving on a wave of sand and blood. Horrible stuff that I haven't dreamt of in ages. Perhaps it was just getting put face to face with old worries once more; relationship worries, friendship worries, money worries and so on.
I guess my mind has to work these things out somehow.

Anyway, other than that, today has been a good day. I am off to have the first hot bath I have had in ages, and then I'm going to watch the Matrix, draw, finish some animation, eat pizza, and go to bed! Exciting stuff, I know, but today is my time out day! :P

On a side note, Kerry and I (kerry being the girl who lives across the hall from me in my new house) have started getting along pretty well. I lent her my Watchmen book, and I hope we'll be conversing more freely as time goes on.

Well, you all stay excellent to each other and have a great one!

Back up North!

Wel, it's been a busy few days, and I just want to keep you all in the loop, so here we go!
I've been back in Hull for one day, and my life has changed forever - same place, different perspective, different Chaz. The last two days have been lived to the full, and I have loved every second.

But lets backpedal a little. Two days ago. I was staying on Ricey's couch, enjoying the company of my old reigate friends before dashing off to meet my family. My aunt and uncle were very busy, which was a dissapointment, but I at least got to talk to them and share my thoughts, feelings, and changes with them. I have changed a lot since my last real talk to them, and who I once was seems to have come back to haunt me on a number of times. Never so much, though, as those few days in Redhill, though.
My aunt quoted something I told her a long time ago, something I had long forgotten: "Friends are more important than family, because you can choose your friends." I had treated my aunt as a friend, but shied away from my uncle as family - at that time in my life I had become so used to family betraying me in one way or another that I purposefully distanced myself from them. And, looking back, I realise how much that must have hurt them.
They haven't changed much, but my view of them has - they are good people, doing the best they could for me, and I love them for it. My life could have been so much worse, and I didn't see that until too late.
Anyway, I got to talk to them in a pub called the air balloon, as Cameron and Max ran off to their friend's birthday parties, and I learned a lot about them, about my mother, and about my father. My father was in the army - an excuse I thought I had made up, long ago... I wonder how much I half-remember about him? I thought I had fabricated this man, who flew off to California to work on computers, who was once in the army, and who was charmin and friendly, free-spirited and a bit of a drinker. But I don't know how much I could have remembered or made up.
Anyway, my uncle has some news on my mom - and I may be able to get into contact with her soon. I hope so, I really do.

In other news, I called up Ellie and told her about everything that happened - even told her that my aunt told me that I should stay with her, because "I obviously love the girl - I justwouldn't shut up about her"... and Ricey said the same. I made a choice. We were going to get handfasted.
Handfasting is an old pagan ritual in which a man and a woman bind themselves to each other for a set amount of time - in our case, a year and a day. Effectively, we are getting engaged. I want to marry Ellie because my time away from her made me realise how important she is to me.
And I love her.
So, I managed to fly on golden, improbable wings all the way to Hull from Redhill in one day - I caught a train to London, a coach to nottingham, and a train from there to lincoln. Obviously nothing was running from there so late at night, but I was determined to get home. I called up 35 taxis and they said a taxi would be there in about half an hour. I waited. And waited, and gave up. I got another taxi number from a local, caught the cab and got home in an hour - the fare was high, but it was worth it. I was home that night, and I got to see Ellie. I proposed to her officially, and she stayed with me that night.

The morning after - this morning, in fact, was one that filled me with dread. I was to meet her mother and formally ask her for her daughter's hand in marriage. She was stunned, and then so happy she began to cry a little. I was so scared that she would actually refuse, or state a horrible, sobering truth. But she is happy, and she spent the morning calling relatives.
I, infact, did the same. I managed to get through to Aunty Charmaine, with a broken line, but I could at least still hear her - and I tried to call my grandmother, but to no avail. Whereever you are, granny Yvonne, happy mother's day.

Ellie and I didn't make the trip to Whitby, as we had planned, but rather we will be going down to visit her grandfather somewhere in the country and get handfasted there. After a year and a day we will decide if we want to stay together forever, or if we want to part ways. The way I feel now, I know that I could never choose to part ways, but time changes, and we always change with it.

I have had little time to do anything; let alone rest or bathe, and I still smell like a week old hermit - sleeping on couches for the past week - I am off now to get some rest, to have a bath, and to have a good meal.
I am happy, and my life is going to move on from here.
Take care, everyone!

It's hard to type when you're on the move!

Finally have some time just to sit and catch my breath. The past few days have been fun and active, but I have rarely had a chance just to sit down and catch up on my progress.
Sorry for the delays in updates, all, but they will be coming up better and paster.

First things first, from the looks of things I will be swinging my nose back north at the end of the week - I'm heading home to hull. I came down south to catch up with old friends and old family, and to learn a thing or two, not to mention give all the old memories a good old stir. I feel that I have done everything I set out to do, and I feel far more within myself than I ever have before.
But don't get me wrong - this journey is by no means over! I will keep on my toes and I know now that my life cannot survive a stagnation of the sort that I underwent before.

I have lived a little now, and grown a taste for it!

Anyway, updates!
On tuesday I left Lincoln by coach, and coasted all the way down to Leicester. The entire environment there is completely different - more variation, but all more misery - more sour faces than I had ever seen before, but the general bustle of people walking by put a lie to the segregation one would feel in Hull, or the stilted solitude that I felt in Redhill.
From there, I went on into London and toured my way around it - night was falling quickly and I had to find a place to put my head down for the night, not to mention my backpack, which was starting to have the feel of a ten-tonne weight!
I got booked into the Generator, then ghosted off to my old haunts in London - Camden, China Town, and Trafalgar Square. So I'm a tourist, so what?
London has changed in one way and one way only. The smoking ban has hit it's residents pretty hard. I didn't see a single smoker out there, not even in the Soho area, or along the west end.
After a hurried free pint, and an even more hurried chinese meal, I went to watch "Dans le Ville de Sylvia" - In the City of Sylvia, a french film about a man's obsession with one woman, and his hope to find her. In it he even overlooks other pretty women and dismisses them - he admires their beauty and their sensuality (it was french after all!) but they all seem to be lacking.
They are not her.
I visually enticing film, with the constant sound of real street life carrying on in the background - a thought provoking piece, but not for everyone...not for many I feel. But one scene in paticular did catch my eye - our hero settles for a bland goth girl in a local bar, one so plastered in makeup and eyeliner that nothing natural, not real beauty, could possibly shine through...at in the night, in the dark, while they sleep, she opens her eyes and the way that the light catches her eyes in the darkness was...haunting. The glint of moonlight in the dakrk hinted at something... dark, and hollow, something that could only be defined as black and hollow.
It captured me.

I had a great time in Generator, and had a few beers in the on-site bar, and talked with some people, a romanian, canadian, some americans, and a young girl from china. In the night, however, there was a strangeness that struck me near dumb. I heard a squeaking from the bunk above mine, and french whispering - I rolled over, my cheeks and ears burning in embarassment - I was an unwitting witness to a couple having sex... or was I?
I heard only one voice, and indeed there was only one in the bunk - yet it did not change my disomfit at being an unwilling intruder to something I had always seen as private. Still, it seems, I have taboos and rules set in my own mind. In some ways I am still very inexperienced.

Coming back to Redhill was an experience too - I met up with all the old gang, Gannon, Ricey, Saan, Jammy and Junade, and even Gary. I had no idea that Gary was here, and though I only saw very little of him it was good to see him again. The old gang reunited and they hadn't changed a bit - still hanging out at ricey's, watching movies and playing games. I was pleased to find that I settled back into my old routines of messing around on games and eating chocolates all day - it is in some ways very comforting to know that there will always be a place to call home.

I also saw my aunt, and two cousins. Cameron has grown very tall and serious. Quiet, but friendly in his own way, and a good gamer. He plays COD like a pro, and even proved to be a challenge against me. He has taken after his father in a big way. His brother, however, has his mother's temperament - hyperactive and cheeky. He also was very shy around me - I am little more that a vague memory to him I am sure. But they are both big, healthy boys, football fans, and very active. I am proud of them, and I am happy for my Uncle, that he has found himself such a good life.
I have yet to meet Uncle Grant - he has been very busy as always, but I hope to se him tomorrow, on saturday. He is still working hard, but from the look of his boys he still has some time for family. I hope, too, that I will find some time to claim some of my old photos back from the dank depths of storage while I am here.

I have thought a lot about the past while here, of the four of hearts, of Sophie, Alex, Gary and myself going off on trips or just hanging out, and of my lost days in college. I even considered contacting Alex, but I know, to my shame, that I would never be man enough to face her after all our history, but neither would I wish to hurt her by pitching up out of the blue and dredge up all those old memories and hurts.
It has made me think about what I want, and who I want to be with, and about people I miss, and people I love.
This has been a good week, and now that I know what can be done in just one week, or even in just one day, I will never let them slip by me like that again.

You all just better keep checking up on me to make sure I do just that!
Live life as much as I can while I can.

Future plans: meet my uncle for football practice, and for lunch, and call my grandmother in south africa on sunday for mother's day.

More updates soon!

Went out to Fuel last night!

[Written at three in the morning, after a night out at fuel - a semi-drunk rant, so much different from my usual rants!


"Just got back home, three in the morning, and I’m dreading waking up. Cold pizza in my hand, warm beer at my side, and my flat now smells of cold chips and old beer. Throw in the scent of smelly socks and used condoms and I would have the typical swinging bachelor pad. We had a good night, which has led me to some strange revelations. On people, on relationships, and what we all want from each other.
Anyway, I met up with the friends from work at fuel, hull’s “most notorious” gay bar and danced the night away to venga boys and lady gaga. As soon as I got there I recognised a young woman called “Amy” who used to work at leonardo’s as a waitress. She was okay, pretty in a quiet way, but I noticed that I recoiled very quickly from any sort of conversation that might lead on to anything. I messed around, danced and shook my ass on the stage in front of the DJ. I was one of “the boys” as the DJ called us, the annoying, loud, straight guys who were “camping it up with the best of them”. Even though we were up there I refrained from stepping to the centre of the limelight, except for one occasion.
“I am the one and only” karaoke, and I sang at the top of my lungs, and stared straight into the eyes of a redhead right in front of us. It was an experience I didn’t much like because I didn’t quite know how to follow it up, and besides I am staying away from any sort of relationship. Even one night stands of any kind lead to too many complications.
Anyway, it was a work night out and nothing more. The stoners got too stoned to come out. The drinkers got too drunk to come out, and the apathetic heroes were far too lazy to walk all that way. I think that friends are not the do-or-die, be there forever figures that I had once thought they were, but perhaps it was merely me. I myself a shadow befriended like shadows and so our friendship and connection meant very little. I considered leaving for good, but one person, one person changed my mind on that.
I have enough money to buy a ticket to South Africa myself, even a return, and I considered taking it, just catching the first coach to an airport and flying back over to SA, but Dom called me up and told me he was sad to hear I was leaving. He got the impression that I was leaving for good, and he was sorry to see me go. His simple, earnest expression convinced me that I would be leaving something good behind if I did leave the country for good.
But that is what this journey is about, finding out where I belong, and if I should just restart from the beginning. Go back to South Africa, tell my landlord to sell everything in my flat to pay for the rent I owe him, and never come back.

…
We had a good night, but it was drenched in the feel of a typical “lad’s night out”. Grinding against dodgy girls, grabbing a kebab from the only takeaway open that night, leaving Wayne chatting up a forty-something pregnant woman…
Ending up the night at a horrible little club called “Shine”. We were the only people in there apart from the old couple in the corner and the guy doing coke in the bathroom upstairs. I watched Phil gamble away twenty pounds before getting bored and we finally all went home.

We all had a good night, I think, but I couldn’t help but notice that I would always be wondering just what the point was. Always looking in from outside, or keeping an eye on my very drunk friends for the night, making sure that they didn’t fall off the stage again, or get into another fight with the short haired dyke with spiky black hair. Having to drag a polish man who I had always suspected was gay away from grinding against a very pro-feminist lesbian was not an experience I thought I would have to go through. I simply thought that Martin was gay, not an awkward anti-socialite.

I’m going to relax a bit longer, listen to some music and then go to bed, for the last time. I hope that after this journey I will have a new bed, a new home, and a new outlook. We are reforged day by day, and our impressions of the world are changed every minute that we are alive, and for that I am … for want of a better word … grateful.

Oh, in an offside, I am going to put up a vote count of my hair: should it be cut or not?
Jeanette said I should, as did Ellie.
Gathan and Ben told me to keep it long, and so did Becky and Adam.
Jody the boy told me to grow it long, wear a shirt, some cheap sneakers, and a hat and be a gangsta.
Phil and Luke called me Steven Segal, so I don’t know if it’s good thing.
Heh. Such memories and comments still make me smile.
Goodnight world."

Half ten in the morning now: Off to Lincoln - trying to find a good hotel or BnB!

Well, it begins!

This is it, everyone! A new blog for a new Chaz!

I'm taking some time out from work, and in the meantime I'm going to take a little journey - to find my roots, so to speak. Taking a trip around England, here there and everywhere, with no real plan in mind other than to live a little, meet som old friends and new relatives, and to start to take stock of myself. I'm hoping to come back different, happier, and more in myself.
A time to heal, and a time to explore.

So, basic plans include: Heading south, catching coaches to whichever city I like the sound of, stop by Lond, East Croydon, and Redhill on the way. To meet people would be good, to have fun is also an option! But the main point, the all encompassing important point is to get out of Hull and to bring myself out of myself for a time!

Hope you guys find my random antics entertaining, and I'll be posting here once a day. If I don't assume that I'm dead, drunk, or dead drunk, and I can't post any more. If I don't return after the end of the two weeks, then I probably got lost, fell in love, or found myself a new home.
(I'm betting on the "Lost" option!)

I'll be taking photos and posting them here, and be keeping a track of just where I've travelled day by day, so keep on looking in to see just what and who I've been doing! If any of you think I should stop by a town or location I am near, go ahead and tell me, I'm out and about to see sights and to mess around, so go ahead and hit me with the weirdest ideas and locations you know!

Take care, kids, and in the famous words of Keanu Reeves before he lost his acting abilities:
"Be excellent to each other!"