Sh*ts And Giggles In Boston

November 3rd saw us trotting off to Boston.

Andy had been asked to be a resident instructor for a week his friend Gershon’s academy - Krav Maga Yashir Boston. And given our devil may care, life-embracing ethos, it seemed rude to decline a freebie trip to the East Coast.

So, it was up at 5am, and off the airport. 5am is very early. It doesn’t feel nice at all. Well, to me. For Andy it seemed an ideal time to work on his Jiu Jitsu strategy.

One very long plane ride later (despite an exhorbitant level of education, I still find it hard to believe it takes as long to get across America as over to it from the UK) we arrived in Bean Town (*I have no idea if this is a real nickname, but Wikipedia seems to think it is).

Gershon had very kindly booked us into the Wyndham Chelsea, which had exceptionally efficient heating and a chair which made Andy look like a ‘Thunderbirds’ puppet.

Obviously my Boston report is tardy in the extreme, so in the spirit of blogdom, I’ll sum up the highlights and get back up to speed.

First up, the weather. The reason that hotel heating was so efficient was because Boston is as cold as the Devil’s sauna is hot (*presumably, I’ve not been round there lately). There were face-slicing winds, spitty rain and snow all over the shop.

Given we only packed California clothes when we left from the UK, this meant we had to wear them all at once and then execute an emergency shopping mission.

Thank you, Forever 21, for three exceptionally cheap jumpers, two pairs of socks, a hat and some full-length trousers (that crop look just doesn’t cut it under 10 degrees centigrade) and thank you H&M for a scarf that several people subsequently described as “fun” (I’m not entirely sure what scarf “fun” entails, but two of them followed up by saying it was “too much fun” for them personally).

Despite my recent transition into a woman of regular exercise, the sudden drop in temperature rather put paid to my training.

I have always been the type that starts to layer on blankets once the thermostat drops below 25 degrees, and Gershon’s brand new Krav studio is being built in a giant warehouse.

Spectacular and functional yes. Weeds out the men from the boys, very definitely.

Sadly I proved myself to be one of the smallest, weediest boys on this occasion and after two days of training, I holed myself up in the hotel and made wimpering noises whenever going outside was mentioned.

I did however manage to sample the joys of power slapping, power kicking and some knife defence in those first two days.

Once again I apologise to the tiny woman who put up with me whapping her repeatedly in the forehead during the warmup fighting games – until told otherwise I did believe it was a legitimate target.

If you can put aside my obvious prowess in the photos, you will see how I am sporting leggings, gi pants and three hoodies, whilst everyone else is in a t-shirt.

Kind of kills the deadly assassin image a bit.

Whilst I was berating the cold, Andy had a battle of his own to deal with. Halfway through our Monday afternoon shopping trip, he started sporting this face.

Whether it was a bug, food poisoning or the switch from semi-fresh Cali fare to sin-laden fast food (put it this way, this was our breakfast selection) his stomach had gone into overdrive, and despite powering through the first few days, by day three he was bedbound, and I was on nurse duty.

Which roughly translated as buying some Pedialyte, stroking his fevered brow and ignoring the unholy sounds from the bathroom.

Still, within 24 hours of taking to his sickbed, the Big Monkey was back upright and ready to teach again, though I did lend him some of my leggings to wear under his gi (he’s not particularly fat-coated at the best of times, and three days of starvation had stripped any last bits of insulation).

After an eventful (well, that bit’s more true for Andy, given my hotel-dwelling habits) week, we were up at 4am and off to the airport.

Intriguingly, this photo of us on three hours rest has garnered several ‘likes’ on facebook, suggesting that I might look better without my beauty sleep.

About fourteen hours and one interior-designed mini-tornado later, we arrived back in Cali.

We spent the weekend eating (god bless fish tacos), sleeping and thawing out, and headed back to Atos on Monday.

18 hours in just ten paragraphs

So, last Friday was the Day Of Travel. Post binning, bagging, boxing and baying, this is what I’m left with.

Suitcase number one is holiday clothes. We are banking on California living up to its ‘Sunshine State’ reputation. On the upside, vest tops and cut downs don’t take up a heap of space.

The drawback is that since we stashed our winter garbs up in the Warminster loft, London has decided to get all autumnal on our asses, which lead to me going out in Havaianas whilst this was happening.

Here’s hoping the desert air can cure another bout of snottiness.

Suitcase number two is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu apparel. Whilst the boyfriend’s primary motivation for picking the US of A is to worship, correction, *train* at Multiple World Champion Andre Galvao’s Atos academy, my own dalliance with the sport has been touch and go of late. Still, I’d hate to have an epiphany and then find I have nothing to wear.

The mini suitcase is full of camera equipment, leads, computer harddrives etc. It’s breaking the two bag rule a bit, but it’s hand luggage and we’re hoping to wear and ditch some of the other stuff on the way back.

Onto Heathrow airport, and flight BA 273. By some strange twist of fate, the Worst Possible Idea’s launch day was accompanied by The Day I Was Picked As The Security Control Passenger. Or so they told me anyway. Between online check-in and boarding the vehicle, I was stopped and sent back twice, had my belongings unpacked twice, and was patted down twice. After five separate incidents where staff surreptitiously flicked over their paperwork to confirm my name was on their secret list, even I was questioning my connections and wondering if I’d accidentally joined an extremist sect. After all, I do like talking to strangers and I’m not the best at concentrating.

Boyfriend and I took up residence on the plane, which was kindly chilled to match the outside air temperature (at 30,000 feet). I bravely battled on by stealing every blanket in the vicinity, doing my best ET impression and tucking into the free wine.

Ten and a half hours later (three of which were spent unconscious on my part) we landed, and were greeted by Homeland Security, and an hour-long queue. If anyone is thinking about illegally hopping into San Diego, I’d say skip it, those guys have a talent for analysis that would shame Sigmund Freud.

This is what people look like after half a day in the air travel system. The rings under my eyes could be exhaustion or a migration of mascara, by this point I was past caring. It was time for a taxi to the illustrious-sounding ‘California Suites,’ our home for the next two weeks…

The seed of an idea

Anyone who knows me, knows I love a list. I also take pessimism and risk-assessment to award-winning levels. If there was a yearly trophy for ‘Most Likely To Find 100 Obscure Reasons Why Something Will Go Wrong’ I’d have a cabinet full.

Whilst that particular skill comes in handy in my work as a television producer (“Watch out for the moving vehicle/rain-bearing cloud in the east/man making V signs in the corner of the shot/imminent presenter meltdown”) it has on more occasions than not, also made me miserable. And (as I’m sure my other half will testify) a bit of a pain in the arse. I might yearn for a life full of arthouse-inspired passion, but when you can shoot down even a walk to the corner shop within milliseconds (“What will we buy, how does that fit into the eating plan and should I take a jumper?”), it rather kills the spontaneity.

I’ll be 39 at the end of October, and with the encroaching birthday comes the realisation that I’ve probably spent half of my life governed by an over-arching need to stop everything going belly-up. In jobs, houses, relationships…I’ve stuck it out with the mantra of “it might be grim, but imagine if it got worse.” Ironically quite often it has – I’ve lost jobs, boyfriends and houses anyway – but even when things are going ok, I’ve managed to find something to fret about. I’ve had dream jobs (filming all over the world for MTV, spending all day thinking about colour palettes as a Creative Director, chatting on Facebook in the name of Social Media Strategy), and I’ve had a fairly dream salary bracket too. I’ve still found something new to worry about - what my boss will say if I take a day off, whether my shiny new laptop will get stolen, whether that mark on the leather sofa will cause me to lose the deposit on my flat. In short, I’ve built some very gilded cages for myself.

When I met my boyfriend, he was planning a six-month sabbatical, a trip across the world to train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And whilst our relationship developed, and the prospect of missing him loomed ever larger, another less-romantically-admirable emotion was building too. I was jealous. I’d watched friends, family members and exes follow their dreams (or even just a whim) and head off to foreign shores. And they all seemed to be doing ok. And yet I was still tied to that sofa, watching my bank balance, sniffling into my tissues (I have a real talent for colds) and muttering “Well, that’s great for them, but there’s so many reasons why I couldn’t do it.”

I don’t know why or how or when, but there was a moment where I just got bored of myself. It was probably less “Carpe Diem” and more “For Pete’s sake, how long is this game going on for?” but I came to the realisation that a few potential mistakes have to be better than a lifetime of feeling mildly disgruntled.

At the end of the day, it was just a decision. Right or wrong, I am going to put trying to control everything on hold, and just live a bit.