Prozac for my blog Pt. II: Here's the twist!

Insert curve-ball here: the next afternoon I get a text saying that unfortunately he can’t make it for the Friday night we had planned on, that his family was moving and he had to attend a farewell dinner. Practical Olya says what I was thinking but didn’t want to. “What, he didn’t know about it before?” Stupidly borderline desperate to go out with this hot teacher, I remind him of his second availability for Saturday lunch and ask if he is still available for that. He replies with “Can I call you? I need to talk to you.” Uhh.... ok?

The ridiculousness (yes I make up words) of this call and my ensuing anger led me to tears. He tells me that I am not supposed to know what he is about to tell me, but that my bossy fucking boss had called him and told him that she didn’t want him to see me and that he should cancel the date we had planned, which she only knew about because stupid me couldn’t keep my excitement contained and my mouth shut. When he asked, “well what should I tell her?” She said to make something up and just lie, hence the fake farewell dinner. Gentleman that he is, he called to explain and apologized for lying, but that he would still like to go out for a drink and keep it on the DL if I was up for it. I was so angry at this point that I was shaking and could barely even form words. I wanted to scream. At my boss. And quit on the spot and tell her exactly what I thought of her. We agreed to meet at the place we had originally agreed upon at the same time. Luckily I hadn’t blabbed that much about this date to my boss.

I went to tell Olya, who said that if she were my boss she might have an issue with her nanny dating her son’s teacher, but that she never would have gone about it the way she did, that she would talk to me and tell me what she was thinking. I told her that he said we could still go out if I wanted to, and Practical Olya gets excited and says “good! That means he’s a real man!” I wouldn’t be properly angry unless I started crying, so I did and immediately called my mother. Mom knows best! As always. Unfortunately I had woken her up at about 7:30am Las Vegas time, but as always she was a good listener and told me exactly what I needed to hear, that my boss had no business doing that and that if I wanted to go out with this guy that I should. My mom knows how lonely I had been getting so she was happy that I had a date.

As I was getting ready Olya was putting the boys to bed and I was doing a fashion show for her and asking her advice. She is like a sister that I never had. I really do love her. I don’t know how she puts up with me. He met me outside the tube station and then we walked to this place that was super packed with people. It was nice to talk for longer than the 2-5 minutes before and after school or occasional tutoring pick-ups. Plus, this guy is ridiculously fun to look at. At some point in the evening the place gets more crowded or the music goes up or maybe I was just a bit too tipsy and couldn’t understand anything he was saying so he moved next to me and only then did I think, uh... maybe he might actually be interested in me. After a few more drinks, including tequila and champagne, I asked if I could kiss him. So basically we closed the place down. Downer of the night, someone made off with my coat. At any rate I got back home really late and the next morning my boss asked me how it had gone the night before. I just said that it was fun and we had a good time. She said “oh with the teacher?” I told her that he couldn’t make it but that I had gone out with my other friend with whom I had been trying to get together with for a proper night out for a long time. She made some silly comments like, “yea you are around kids all the time, you don’t need to be dating a teacher too.” Uh... surefuckoff. He’s not a child. (The next week she randomly says “what do you think about real estate agent guys?” I don’t think about them at all, I say. She wants me to find an apartment for the in-laws. A day in the life of being a nanny for this family.) So Hot Teacher and I decided to meet for the lunch on Saturday as well and it was nice to walk around and have lunch by the river. Although I did get a little freaked out when he mentioned that a bunch of the teachers and the headmaster of the school live in the same neighborhood, or borough, if you’re British, love. He didn’t seem to care though. He said that he told the headmaster what had happened with the awkward phone call and that the headmaster was appalled and said that she had no right and that he would talk to her, but Hot Teacher declined such an intervention for attitude checks.

Really the only thing that could actually happen is that he wouldn’t be able to do tutoring for the little dude after school twice a week as he is now scheduled and nothing would really happen to me, since of course, I know nothing of all this nonsense.

After about a month of this sneaking and being vague, I am officially over it, and I can’t wait for the school year to be over so I won’t have to hide the fact that we are seeing each other. It is strange to have to carefully discern who I can and can’t tell that I have a “B-word” boy..... *gasp* friend. It’s been a really long time since I’ve used that word. It feels like profanity when I say it! Haha. So yea, he’s my boyfriend now and I have these feelings for him that I never though I would have for anybody ever again and so much more. I feel like a giddy teenage girl! It’s nice, and will be nicer after July 8th.

We got to go to Paris together on a random trip that I was originally supposed to take with the family. I was supposed to go with the mom and the older boy, but they ended up coming back before I went. She knew that I was going to see my friend in Paris, but I confabulated that my other friend in Geneva was going too just to ensure that I would have these days off. (I hate lying.) So I went with Hot Teacher on Wednesday morning and returned Friday evening. Our trip was so nice! It was nice to not have to be on edge about who might see us together, although I was still on the look-out a bit because I knew that the grandparents and niece of my boss were in Paris at the same time. It was nice to roam around and see the sights. You want to take a boat on the river? Ok, there’s one leaving... right now. Let’s go. I was the only French speaking (somewhat) part of this duo so I did lots of the talking and it was nice to be able to actually use my French and practice. I hate looking like a tourist, so we did as the Parisians do. Chill out in the sunshine with some coffee and pastries for breakfast with the significant other. Paris is the city of love, after all. C’est la vie!

Right now (when I wrote this) I’m on vacation with the family in the Caribbean and we will have been gone for 2 weeks upon our return. We are on a beautiful island called Nevis at the Four Seasons and it is absolutely beautiful. It is a volcanic island and it is super green and lush. I am happy that the boys get a break from city life, and some clean air, and we are all getting tanned. We burned on the first day and poor littlest guy was so severely burned we had to put some numbing cream on him and give him ibuprofen to sleep. We are all peeling now and he was so cute when he figured out that he could scratch his back on the chair. I took video. The only bad part about being here is having to spend so much time with my boss and be friendly with this person that I really wish I could just never have anything to do with. I am not a fake person, or a liar of any sort, nor am I very secretive, and it is really very strange to have to be these things with her and to have to watch what I say. I am not very good at that and have ruined Christmas or birthday surprises because of it. Either that or my mom is just too smart to be fooled! Probably a bit of both.

I have really missed Hot Teacher, and it’s like the old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I can’t wait to see him again and spend most of my accumulated time off with him. I am very very grateful for the technology available these days. I was able to video skype with him from my iPhone when I was on the beach this afternoon with some free time. If only there were some device that could instantaneously transport him to the beach to talk to in person, that would be great. Bedtime again, counting down the days until our reunion.

Prozac for my blog Pt. 1

So it has come to my attention that my blog is borderline manic depressive and needs some zoloft. I think the only reason that this is so is because I am very busy when I am not busy being down on life! I have since made some friends in London, although no locals, my French friends are really great and I love to hang out with them. I felt like the odd man out sometimes since they were all in relationships, mostly long distance, and I was one of the only single ones, and the only single girl in the group. I always like to go have lunch or go do anything with Charlotte and Samantha. We went to a vintage fair and had a great time together all day wandering around looking at really old clothes and then just wandering around London on the bus.

I have also since started seeing someone. No, not the guy from the train. He never called. >:P Whatever, as they (I) say. As my mom says, “he’s just. not. that. into you!” Thanks Mom. So since the start of school in September I have gawked at Nika’s teacher from afar, sticking around a bit longer to say good morning, or showing up just a few minutes late so most of the kids are gone from class to be able to squeeze in a few niceties. After drop off I would walk out the back door of the school so I could peek in the window to maybe catch a glance at him and see if he even saw me. I was happy to take Nika to Saturday morning soccer since he was one of the teachers leading it. I even got a whole 3 minutes one day of talking to him. All I learned was that he was going to the US for a big chunk of the summer by himself. I told him of my trip to Iceland that I was taking and he asked, “oh really, who are you going with?” It was a question easily left vague enough, but I made it clear I was going by myself because all my friends were busy. No mention of a boyfriend. I once had to ask him for the other teacher’s phone number to organize tutoring and I almost asked for his as well, ya know, just in case. ;)

Basically, besides the general good habit of not looking like a slob and making one’s outfit match or trying to make oneself look nice, he was the reason I was wearing different outfits and even brushing my hair in the morning. In New York I had it tied back basically every day. All that being said, did I get even the slightest inkling that he might take somewhat of an interest in me? NO! But I did it anyway. I talked about him with other nannies of boys in the same class and even my boss and one of her friends. One of the Easter fair silent auction items was a night out with Nika’s teacher and a couple of other male teachers from the school. I told my boss that I’d buy that and just take Nika’s teacher and she laughed and said “yea me too!”

The other nanny, Olya immediately said what she said about the train guy and other guys I would point out to her that I thought were attractive: “maybe he’s gay”. Her case was crushingly good. He’s very good looking, he’s well dressed, well groomed, and the biggest one, he works with little kids. Not many men can handle kids and even fewer have any patience with them. If I didn’t love her, I’d have been really angry with her for planting this seed. I even talked to my boss about it. She was convinced he wasn’t gay. I’m not a crazy stalker or anything but I did what any girl in this day and age does. I facebook-stalked him. His profile picture was him and another guy hugging. Damn. She was right. Inconsequential! I’d try anyway.

So one of my lonely roaming days off I went to the British Museum of something-or-other and after I went to a book shop that I found. I was thinking of him and his trip to camp across the US this summer when I bought Jack Kerouac’s On The Road to read and then give to him. I decided to skip all the forwards so I could finish it before Nika went on Easter break (for the entire month of April) instead of my original plan of giving it to him before summer to read while he was on the road himself. I wrote my name and location in the book which is something I always do with books I intend to exchange at hostels while traveling, but also included my phone number. When I went to give it to him I was super nervous! It was the day of the Easter fair at the school and there was another mom coming so I just stood there outside the door holding this book facing him waiting for the mom to pass and feeling my cheeks turn red. The confidence I had when I had left home had faded and I was the girl putting herself up for rejection, if he even noticed what I had written. I gave it to him and feebly mumbled that I thought he should have it since he was going to the US and it’s about a guy who travels across the US a few times and it was an American classic and he said thank you and seemed really happy about it. I walked away and was telling the other nanny, my counterpart with Nika and Danny, that I felt like an idiot and so stupid for doing that. Practical as she is, she brushed me off like I was being silly and said, “why? Just forget about it.” She knows that I have had a thing for him basically since she started working with us.

That afternoon I get a text saying thank you for the book and that I should really let him take me out for a drink to say thank you properly. Basically I died. I was elated. I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling. Olya was there, as always, and she was laughing at me laughing and getting so excited and she said “Angela, don’t get your hopes up. He’s English. He’s proper and maybe he’s just doing it to be nice.” I didn’t care, I was going to be happy and not let her maybe-he’s-gay banter interfere with my ecstatic mood. It took me a long time to even be able to reply. I was lucky that I was in the little kid play section of this museum so that my excited laughing and giggling was drowned out by kids running and yelling. I was so ridiculously happy I could scarcely contain myself.

The sun is emerging from the clouds, slowly but surely, although you won't be able to tell from this post. :)

So here’s (one of my) problem[s]: I am attracted to the wrong kind of men. I like men who keep up with their appearance, who dress well. I appreciate strong facial features and tall men. Basically, I like good looking men, and my eye is drawn to facial hair. This is all superficial attraction. I am not as shallow as I am making myself out to be right now. Anyhow, the issue is that most of the men who fall into these categories that I have specified are gay, either overtly or in a very masculine way, which is another drawing point, I should mention. Of course nothing would ever happen with these men that I spot and instantly, temporarily fall in love with because I see these men walking on the street or riding the train and here in London, even if you catch repeated stealing of glances, nothing will happen. They won’t talk to you, they won’t smile, they won’t let even the slightest grin escape from their façade of mysticism/cynicism/interest/apathy. Take your pick as to which they are concealing.

So either they are gay or in a relationship. I’m a sucker for good looks, and it’s my problem if the guy with the good looks is already in a relationship, right? I’m 25 years old. I should be able to date and not sound like an idiot when I talk about what I want to do in the future. I should already be doing it.

I noticed today that the only people who speak to others when not addressed are American. I overheard a conversation in which an older American couple surprised a British woman who was waiting for the train in an attempt to, I assume, be friendly. As a consequence, they just seemed overly chatty, nosy, and naive as they were unabashedly forthcoming with unsolicited information about their stay, where they were from, which plays or operas they had seen or wanted to see. As it seems actually, I am the cynic here. (I posted this last night, and as soon as I woke up I realized that I am probably just jealous of the Americans in that I find it hard to walk up to people and talk to them. And I'm jealous of the Brit who got to meet some new people, whether they annoyed her or not. Disregard cynicism - it's just jealousy.)

Also, I’m lonely. I have been single for a long time, and I miss the feeling of being in a relationship. I miss going on dates and holding hands with someone. I like getting to know people, and here it seems hard to start relationships even just as friends. I know that I have not exhausted all the possibilities, but there is only so much time in a day. A girl needs some time to herself sometimes too.

I’m losing perspective and/or I never had it. I want to finish school, but if I don’t get in to university here, I am not quite sure what I will do. It’s like there is a clear path drawn to university and beyond, but if I’m not on the path to university, there is no other path to take, just an air of vagueness and uncertainty. It’s hard to live life like that. When someone asks what I want to do, I have no answer. I never really knew when I was little what I wanted to be when I “grew up”, but here I am already, and I’m supposed to be doing it, whatever it is. I never knew what I wanted to do, but I never thought it would say “nanny” in my job title. I suppose if I don’t get into university with my application, I can go to school through a clearing place. I do like living in London and would prefer to stay here.

My life is depressing me right now.

In Geneva there was never anything to do, but there were people to do it with. Here, there are thousands of things to do but no one to do them with. I miss making friends.

I feel really... just... unmotivated to do anything related to my job at all. When you ask your boss for a raise and she says "I could hire 3 of you for that", it makes you realize that she thinks you're replaceable. Uh huh, she's delusional if she thinks she can pay somebody what she pays me to do ALL the things I do. I can get more, WITH my own apartment in Manhattan (which I should mention is something that she is backing out of providing for me here in London, also my second month of vacation that I was originally promised). Grocery shopping? Cleaning out the "junk drawer" in the kitchen? Changing lightbulbs? Scanning bills to email so they can be paid by someone else? Yea... not related to children!

I don't want to do this anymore. If I felt more appreciated, maybe I wouldn't mind so much. I'm getting really fed up. I am just sticking it out until I find out about schools here in London. I'm looking for schools in the U.S. too. I need a break from raising someone else's children.

I still have basically no social life. I'm getting so down. I was crossing the street the other day and saw a car from far away coming and though, "what if that car was going really fast and it hit me?" Maybe I'd meet a cute doctor at the hospital. I'm not seriously considering hurting myself, I should note. I crossed the street and I do not walk in front of cars, knowingly at least. I don't like pain. I can only imagine that a car smashing into me and potentially breaking bones hurts a lot.

The beginning of my life in London

Maximovo



Ah, so I have a lot to write about, but not much to say.

After my month of vacation I went back to Maximovo in Russia to take care of the kids for a month before we all came to London. This was pretty traumatic for me. The summer nanny completely ruined 100% of the work I had done in disciplining the boys. Now even perfectly behaved little Danny was throwing tantrums for not getting his sugar-encrusted fruit for breakfast. Nika has several days spent totally in time out having tantrums. With a child like Nika, you need routine. He was used to our routine in New York, and he knew what was expected of him. All of a sudden he got this older Russian woman who gave him candy when he screamed for it, and couldn’t control him. (I told her when she started not to give them candy or chocolate or sweets. Apparently the boys’ mother also told her repeatedly not to give them sweets too.) I was appalled when I walked into the boys’ room when she was putting Danny down for a nap and she was sitting in a chair next to his bed while he was sitting in his bed and she was feeding him pieces of chocolate bar. I told their mother, but I should have gone and taken the chocolate away from her or something.


I forgot to mention, this Russian nanny doesn’t speak any English. She speaks Russian and German. I speak English, French, what little Spanish I remember that doesn’t come out in French, and only a few bad phrases in German. (Thanks A2!) Communicating with her was very difficult. I got Nika to stop misbehaving SO much, which ended up being only about a 10% improvement. At one point, Rita (Russian nanny) gave Nika some chocolate something-or-other, and I took it away, since it was almost lunch time, and I told him he could have some after lunch if he behaved. She gave him something else and he tried to run off with it and hide in the house he had made of blankets and pillows, and I took it away and told him he could have some after lunch again. Rita called him over, they went around the corner, and 5 seconds later they came back around. I knew what they were doing and I was immediately so angry I was really surprised. I wasn’t just angry, I was furious. It had been years since I was so angry, if I had ever even been that upset. I was so angry the rest of the day that I couldn’t even look at her. It took a really long time for that feeling to fade. It was terrible.

I reimplemented time out’s, and it was met with much hostility from more than just the boys. Rita thought I was torturing the boys: I was apparently teasing them with candy and then putting them in a chair away from everybody, then outside of they kept screaming for misbehaving. (I should mention, that in Russian culture, it’s an insult if someone says that your child behaves well, like an adult. Children are supposed to be wild and crazy and run around and do whatever they want.) Then, after a while, when Rita sleep in the bed she had made for herself, she switched to my method and put the boys in time out. But instead of doing it in stages and giving them a warning before they went to the time-out chair, then putting them outside if they kept on screaming, she just put them outside with no warning. They didn’t understand why they were getting in trouble. Ugh! Never again! I had to start from scratch, from before scratch! with the discipline for the boys.

It was good that I went to speak English with them because he started school only 3 days after we arrived in London. Nika remembered his English, but he took a while to formulate his answers when we would talk. Danny refused to talk to me in English in the beginning. Even a month later after we arrived in London he would speak to me in Russian first, then I’d have to say “what?” and he would repeat in English. He did the same at school. Now both of them are doing well with their English. Nika doesn’t work well in school though. He’s too easily distracted. All the boys know Nika, because he gets up and jumps around and runs around the classroom, and the teacher is always telling him to sit down. “Nika sit. Nika, stop that. Nika, Nika, Nika!” Nika doesn’t know the other boys, but everybody knows him, and he knows it.

Enough about kids. I had a birthday a week after we arrived. I was lucky only because the boys’ dad’s parents were here from California, and Viola made me some napoleon for my birthday, and insisted on buying me a birthday cake. Other than that, my birthday was terrible and I hope I never have another birthday like that. I had no friends or family there, just work, and the family had a housewarming party that day. So not only was I watching Nika and Danny, there were other kids there who were misbehaving, and everybody was speaking Russian. All I could do was to wait for time to pass and for bedtime for the boys. Boss-man, and woman, told me that I should go out and at least have a walk after the boys went to bed, so I did. It was nice to get out of the house, but it was even more depressing to me after I walked by all the bars and restaurants crowded with people who were friends. I didn’t feel right going into a bar by myself when it was so crowded and buying myself a drink. I was so depressed that I didn’t have any of my friends or family to celebrate with. One of my old friends in San Antonio sent me flowers, and that was nice. It’s not the same as having people to go out with.

I got to go back to New York in mid-October for a week to get my visa. This is after 2 months of non-stop working in Russia and London. The family hired another woman to take care of Danny and speak Russian with him, and her first week was with me and the boys' mom gone. Poor Olya! So I got a UK work visa and then flew from NYC to Dubai to meet the family there. It was really nice and warm. The beach was nice, the pool was nice, but as with every vacation that I go on with the family, it's not a vacation for me. It's work. I can't sit on the beach and soak up some sun with a margarita and a book or friends, I'm slathering sunscreen onto little boys and trying to keep them from drowning in the sea or pool. See, if I were on vacation, I would not have had to deal with the fact that Danny made a huge, messy poo in the pool. If I were on vacation, I would have had my name on the list several times a day for massage on the beach. If I were on vacation, I would go out to dinner with some cool person who I chose to go on vacation with. We did get to see the world's tallest building and go into the world's only 6 star hotel for afternoon tea. Anyway, the flight back to London was terrible, too. Of course, mom and dad were in first class as they tossed us back into economy. Mom got Nika a big-gulp-size juice before the flight, so he had to go to the toilet literally every 5 minutes before, during, and after take-off, and while the guys were coming with the drink carts. Danny on the other hand, made a poo in his pants. :) (Ilovemyjobilovemyjobilovemyjob.)

And so it went. It has been over 3 months and I still haven’t made many friends. When I went to open my bank account the person who works there gave me his phone number, and we actually got together one afternoon, but that was it. I made friends with a couple of girls, but they both went home for the holidays, back to France. (At least I will be able to practice my French... soon.)

The highlight of this post: I met the most gorgeous man on the underground. I was waiting around for the train to go to yoga after I dropped Nika at school and this man comes onto the platform and asks me if the next train was going all the way to the end of the line. I had no idea since there were delays on the train that day. We started chatting while waiting for the train and the platform soon filled up. We got on the crowded train and were smashed up against the masses of people who were already on the train and the people who were trying to get on. Since I was smashed between some tall man’s ribcage and a talking directly into an Asian lady’s ear, I felt a too shy to ask him for his number. Before I got off the train I shook his hand, smiled and edged my way out of the train. I couldn’t stop thinking of him the whole time. I ended up at yoga and kept thinking of him and hoping that he might try to figure out how to get in contact with me. All I got was his first name and where he was from. It’s impossible to Facebook stalk people based on this limited amount of information. It was pretty pathetic on my part for even trying. :P So I decided that I’d go back the next day. Unfortunately, Nika’s mom took him to school since there was a teacher conference that day. I told my friend back in San Antonio about this guy and she seemed to brush it off and said “that sort of thing only happens in movies”. I told my new French friend the story and she said the same thing.

I went back to the same station every day the next week at the same time, and waited until about the time that I saw him, then I went to another platform for a different train to either go home or go to the other yoga studio. Every day I felt more and more ridiculous. The platform monitor man who tells the trains when the doors are clear was always there and he’d see me watch train after train go by, waiting around for who knows what. I felt so silly every day and exponentially moreso as each day passed. One night I was talking to my mom and I told her about the guy and how I wish I could have gotten his number and I told her what I was doing about going to the station and waiting there. As she would say, she was pegate lele. She couldn’t stop laughing, and it was the laugh she has when she can’t breathe. Thanks for laughing at me Mom! It was funny though. She encouraged me to go do that and maybe I’d see him again. So the next day I headed over there and told myself that this was the last day I’d do that, and if I didn’t see him, it wasn’t meant to be. I felt like everybody knew that I was waiting around for this guy that would probably never end up going to work late again and like everybody was ridiculing me, especially the platform monitor man, and then as I stood by the wall, guess who walks onto the platform! The elusive Mystery Man himself! He sees me and says “Oh hey, Angela, right?” We talked and boarded the next train. I knew I would literally want to kick myself if I didn’t ask for his number, but silly, shy little ole me, what do I do? Instead of asking for his number and just asking him if we could get together sometime not involving public transit chance meetings, I ask him for his last name and if I could Facebook stalk him. (Smack myself on forehead with painful expression on face.) It would have been less humiliating if I had just asked him for his number. Then I sent him a message, once I found him, and asked if he wanted to go out before he left for Australia for the holidays. Strangely enough, or not, he agreed and we went out for dinner-ish on a weeknight before he flew to Australia on Saturday.

I was so nervous. He is amazingly good looking and I haven’t been on a first date in..... uhh.... basically since I lived in California. I feel like I didn’t talk much, or have anything useful to say. Anyway, it’s all ok. We will see if we go out again. (Fingers crossed, please!) He won’t be back until after the new year.

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like this though. After my last boyfriend and I broke up, it hurt so much I just kept thinking that love wasn’t worth feeling as bad as I did. I distanced myself from having a relationship, especially when I lived in France because I knew that I wasn’t going to be there for very long and didn’t want to end up heartbroken at the end of the year. But maybe it’s like me and marathons. The day after I always tell myself that I’ll never do another one as I inch my way towards the edge of the bed to get up, in constant, full-body pain. Even my skin and organs seem to ache. Then a month later I’m looking for the next race I want to register for. But the thing is that marathons are nowhere near as much fun as being in a relationship with someone you love and who loves you.

In New York it was really hard to meet people, and here it is too. I am looking forward to meeting more people here, making some friends, and going out with Mr. Aussie again. :) I'm off to work on my personal statement for my university application here in London.